


strike the statement

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice Society of America (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his parents are killed in a hit put out by Tony Zucco, Dick Grayson resolves to follow in their footsteps by any means necessary.  Leaving the circus for Grant's Gym in New York is the first of many steps that Dick takes in order to become a masked hero.</p><p>Eight years later, Bruce Wayne receives word of a new crime-fighter in Manhattan that seems to be running wild under the noses of the JSA. This "Robin" is a hard hitting, wise-cracking hero and Bruce is immediately suspicious of his motives and his methods.</p><p>If the JSA isn't able to keep Robin in check, maybe the Batman might have better luck setting him straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the masterpost of accompanying art by creepylicious [HERE](http://creepylicious.livejournal.com/114430.html) which has larger versions of their lovely watercolors. 
> 
> And look at this banner:
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/MissSynph/media/bb/header_small.jpg.html)

[ ](http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/MissSynph/media/bb/ScreenHunter_02Oct241659.jpg.html)

Following the thudding sound of his parents’ bodies hitting the packed earth of the big ring, things seem to move differently for Dick.

He cries out as he runs over to their broken bodies. That’s expected. But then he catches a glimpse of a man in a big brown sweater heading towards the far side of the big top instead of rushing to the main entrance with everyone else. Dick glances down at his parents; at the dark red blood oozing towards him, and he takes off. He runs in the direction of the mysterious man, feet flying over the sawdust as he dodges screaming people.

Dick ducks under a gap in the tent and comes out in the moonlit clearing where Gotham City has let them run the circus for the better part of the past week and a half.

The change in lights makes Dick squint for a second and he worries that he’s lost the man he saw scurrying away like a roach under bright lights. And then he sees it; the big black town car in the distance and the figure of a man walking up to it.

Gleaming black and parked away from the fleeing crowds trying to get away, the car is expensive enough that Dick knows in an instant that it doesn’t belong to anyone at the circus.

It’s out of place and if it were any other time, any other crisis, more people would notice it.

Dick starts heading towards the car, trotting across bits of churned up grass and gravel as fast as he can without winding up directly in the path of the headlights cutting a shining swath through the darkness just beyond the far edge of the circus tents. Dick sticks to the shadows as he moves, hugging the still-warm canvas as he creeps after the suspicious man walking slowly towards that car.

When Dick reaches the last tent (the pink and purple one that the circus fortuneteller uses during the day), he pauses and squints when the rear window on the driver’s side of the car rolls down and a fleshy-faced man sticks his head out.

Dick close enough to hear it when the man in the car turns the engine off, when the hum of the obviously expensive engine cuts out and the fading sounds of screaming rush in to fill the space left behind. This close, Dick can hear the sound of conversation coming from the people in the car. He hears the man in the sweater say, "I did it like you said, boss," before handing something over to the man in the car.

It’s unmistakable, the small scrap of fabric that his parents’ killer presses into the hands of the man sitting in that big car. Dick would recognize the sleek black and blue of his father’s other costume anywhere. It’s the one that he isn’t supposed to know about beyond quiet conversations with his mother.

And Dick’s a kid; he’s good at holding on to things he’s not supposed to have. Clutching tight to memories he’s not supposed to have is no different than stealing away with extra cotton candy to share with Raya and Calvin.

Dick’s breath seizes in his chest and his knees threaten to buckle. He opens his mouth (to cry out, to shout, to call attention to the men who killed his parents,) but before any sound can escape his lips, he feels a strong hand close around his shoulder.

"Hey, I --"

That hand on Dick’s shoulder moves to cover his mouth. Dick tastes rubber on his tongue and gags quietly before a big, black cloak sweeps over him, covering him and drawing him deeper into the shadows cast by the tent. When Dick stops feeling like his heart is about to explode from sheer fear, he looks up, up, and--

"Holy... _Batman_ ," Dick breathes, voice hushed and filled with awe as he stares up into the blanked out lenses of the tall man’s mask.

Before Dick can really get going, Batman shushes him and then says, "I’ll handle this," in a low growling tone.

He’s off before Dick can do more than blink and rock back on his heels, sweeping through what shadows stretch between them and the two men in the car.

Dick tries not to follow, he really does, but his parents are dead and the man that might be responsible is sitting there in a car worth more than the money it costs to get everything set up for a year of circus living.

He follows in Batman’s footsteps (literally,) picking through the heavy grooves left behind in the packed clay from the massive man’s boots in a path stretching towards the idling black car. Batman doesn’t look back, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that makes Dick think that he’s not exactly slipping by unnoticed.

The man (men?) in the car notice Batman seconds later, right before he’s on top of them. The town car jolts forward, pulling away from the man in the sweater and speeding off with a trail of dust clouding the air. Dick watches with wide eyes, staring as Batman tackles his parents’ killer to the ground and then wrestles the man into a pair of cuffs.

Dick presses his back against the nearest surface --a light pole that looks as though it’s seconds away from toppling over-- and watches with wide eyes as Batman forces the man back into a standing position with a strong yank of his hands.

"Who do you work for," he growls into the thug’s face and even from where Dick is standing, the snarl baring Batman’s teeth is frightening.

Up close, it must be even more so.

The man stammers several things at a time, apologies mostly, but in the end, he gives up the name.

"Zucco," he says, stammering a bit when Batman shakes him hard enough to make his head jerk back and forth alarmingly. "T-Tony Zucco paid me to take care of them. He said they were in the way but he didn’t tell me more than that."

Batman shakes him once more for good measure then pulls the man after him in the direction of the wailing sirens as the police converge on the circus. Batman glances at Dick as he passes by, thin lips pressed together so tightly that they almost look like a grim slash across his face.

"Everything will be alright," is what Dick is expecting to hear and so when Batman instead tells him that "one does not easily get over the deaths of ones parents" in a low voice, he jumps.

"Really?" Dick asks after a second passes, trotting alongside Batman as though the bigger man isn’t dragging his parents’ murderer to meet justice. "How do you know?"

Batman doesn’t answer him and Dick feels as though he’s said the wrong thing entirely. He thanks Batman, voice jumping up until it’s high and squeaky and then takes off for the other side of the big tent, running because he’s a kid and he’s scared and on top of that... It looks as though he might have hurt Batman’s feelings by accident.

Dick only looks back once and when his eyes meet the blanked out lenses in Batman’s cowl, a realization hits Dick hard in his chest. He knows what he’s going to do when he’s finished mourning his parents properly. Dick knows exactly what he has to do to honor them. And it’s not going to be him making the Flying Graysons work as a solo act.

"I want to be a hero," Dick says in a little whisper and the words feed something warm inside of his body. "I want to be like Batman." That’s all that Dick gets before the reporters and policemen notice him and the blood on his shoes.

After that, Dick is reminded that not all of his mourning will be in private before the people are upon him and tears spring to his eyes at the realization that his parents aren’t going to come and pull him out of the crowd. He loses sight of Batman in the crowd of people coming to him, but the memory lingers vividly enough that Dick _knows_ that he'll never forget a single second of his time in Batman's presence.

*

With the death of his parents comes talk of Gotham City foster homes and leaving the circus for good.

Dick wants none of the former, but he's already made plans for the latter. Plans that take him next to no time at all to put into play. After all, all he has to do is avoid the court appointed social worker long enough for the circus's train to get him to their next stop in New York. Then he can disappear and the world will forget about Dick Grayson along with the memory of the Flying Graysons.

Dick’s halfway through packing the biggest wheeled suitcase he can find in the train car that he shares -- _shared_ \-- with his parents when Raya Vestri, one of Dick's oldest and best friends in the circus family, lets herself into the car; waltzing into the cramped little living space as though it's her room.

Like the rest of the circus family, Raya is dressed in black from head to toe to show that the whole family is mourning the loss of Dick's parents right alongside him. Even the already chipped nail polish on her fingers is a matte shade of black.  Unlike the rest of the circus family, however, Raya smiles when she sees Dick and the smile reaches all the way up to her pale green eyes.

Propping her hip on one side of the rickety table bolted to the floor of their little home, Raya smiles despite the frown that Dick feels taking root on his face. She sweeps a hand down over the front of her glittery black skirt, sending it rustling as she waits for Dick to make the first move.

"Don't you know how to knock?"

Dick jams another handful of clothes in on top of what he has already and tries to ignore the pang that comes from packing without his mother chiding him to make sure his suitcase can close. The question is mostly rhetorical anyway, and even if Raya answers him, it won't be anything of substance.

Dick makes a face and then flicks his eyes over at where Raya is busy playing with the hem of her skirt.

"I could have been changing in here."

Raya is in that stage where everything she says comes out as a zippy one-liner. She looks Dick over from head to toe before giving him her best "I'm-so-unimpressed" face.

"So what?" Raya flicks a bit of her long red hair out of her face and snorts as she looks Dick over from head to toe. "It's not like I haven't seen it all before."

Dick feels his face warm with heat.

He tries to force himself to go back to packing his suitcase instead of glancing at Raya's face and getting sucked into another conversation that leaves him feeling way younger than he is.

Dick almost does it. He almost ignores Raya like he wants to, but the temptation to feel like everything is normal gets to him. He may be in mourning, but he's still only twelve and Raya still knows how to hit every single one of his buttons without even trying.

"What the heck are you talking about?"

Dick whirls around to look at Raya who presents him with a particularly smug smile that reaches all the way up to her bright green eyes. Dick crosses his arms over his chest and straightens his shoulders in an attempt to take up more space. He's not even _close_ to being taller than Raya is (and he probably won't ever pass her in height no matter how old he gets or how much taller he grows), but he can at least pretend to be the bigger person.

Sometimes...

Raya giggles and her eyes crinkle up at the corners.

"I _do_ have brothers," Raya points out as though Dick is being silly.

There's a clear space at the end of the small couch where Dick sleeps when the circus settles down in a town and Raya plops down on the cushions with all of the ease of someone who's used to getting their way. The look in her eyes shifts to something that Dick doesn't quite understand (but he understands enough to feel uncomfortable).

"What?" Dick barks out. He knows he sounds suspicious as heck, but there's something about Raya's almost pinched expression that's almost too old for her face. "What are you up to Raya?"

She shrugs.

"Nothing."

Dick frowns.

"I don't believe you."

This time, Raya's giggle sounds like something Dick should be running from -- or maybe, it's something he should be running _towards_. His stomach feels tight and his fingers start to feel a little bit sticky with sweat when he goes to shove another t-shirt into his suitcase. Dick shakes his head to clear it and then turns his back on his friend.

"You know what," he says softly, "It's none of my business, Raya. It really isn't."

The train car isn't very big.

Sometimes, Dick's dad used to stretch out both his arms until the very tips of his fingers would brush the crinkled metal wall of their car. It's a cramped fit for two adults and a twelve-year-old, but with half of Dick's parents' things gone to other people in the camp, the car seems bigger than usual.

Or maybe that's the part of Dick's head that's never going to get used to having empty space where his parents should be.

Dick packs in silence for several minutes, putting his clothes and some of his books away in the suitcase until the only thing left of his in the open area of the car are his pajamas and a pair of shorts for when he needs to work out or run to blow off steam later in the day.

All of his parents' clothes are long gone with what can fit them going to the performers that don't have enough and the rest of it landing in a Redemption Army donation box. Dick is happy for that. He doesn’t think that he'd have been able to go through his mother's costume jewelry knowing that she'd never again ask him to put it on for her.

Dick winds up with only few things remaining from the collection of his parents' things. He wraps their albums up in one of his dad's oversized sweaters and then puts them dead center in the suitcase. Their papers go in the front of the suitcase in a zippered compartment that barely closes thanks to the thick sheaf of papers Dick shoves inside of it.

Dick saves the most important thing of all for last. The small black bag that holds what's left of his parents' costumes goes in the bottom of his suitcase and Dick blocks Raya's view of the suitcase as best as he can with his body before zipping it up and looking back at her.

"If there's no practice today," Dick says once he has the suitcase zipped and placed halfway behind the couch where Raya sits. "Why are you here?"

"You haven't been outside all day have you?" the smile falling from Raya's face. She looks at Dick with a sharper look on her face and then nods her head. "I knew it. Calvin said you've been stuck in here for the past few days, but someone should have told you --"

"Told me what?" Dick asks, voice rising and taking on the sharper edge of panic.

Raya pulls at the hem of her skirt.

"The police are everywhere," she says softly, "I heard them telling Mr. Haly that they want to keep you as a witness. I -- I think they're going really to keep you here while we go on to New York." A shuddering breath pushes out of her chest and Raya pulls her legs up so that she can wrap her arms around her knees. "And --"

"And what?" Dick barks out, feeling like a record on repeat. "What else is there?"

Raya frowns. "Ray said Bruce Wayne was asking for you," she mutters, shifting her eyes to the side. "He was with the social worker and they were asking all sorts of questions. I think -- I think that if you're planning to leave or hide or whatever, that you need to get on it now. I don't think they're going to leave without you if they think you're here."

Sighing, Dick glances over at his suitcase as he tries to come up with a good plan. Several moments later, one hits him.

"I need a favor, Raya," he says. Without waiting for her to nod or accept, Dick pushes on. "Can you get Ray and Calvin to make a mess for me? Something that'll distract the cops and everyone so I can get down to Zitka's car?"

"How are you going to get there?" Raya asks, eyes widening. "She's at the end of the train, Dick. If you go outside, they'll see you and --" Raya cuts herself off and utters a huffing sigh, the sound weary the way Raya usually sounds when Dick or any of the other kids their age at the circus is about to do something that'll end with one of more of them in trouble. "You're going to do something foolish aren't you?"

Dick cracks a smile at the way Raya's voice sounds.

"No one ever looks at the top of the train cars," he points out. "We're not in a James Bond movie. If you guys can keep it that way, I can lug my suitcase down to Zitka's car and spend the rest of the day there until we're in New York. That's where I'll get off, I think."

"And what'll I tell them when they can't find you?" Raya asks.

"Tell 'em I ran away," Dick says, shrugging. "They won't care. I mean -- Tell Haly I'm leaving if you want, but don't do it till I'm gone."

When Raya's face falls all of a sudden, Dick rushes to comfort her.

"It's not forever," he says. "Just till I'm eighteen. I just -- I don't want to lose all my choices. If I go now on my own, I can find some of my parents' friends or some family we used to have and stay there. If they take me now --"

"You might never get to come back to the circus at all." Raya finishes Dick's sentence.

She frowns and then gets up off the couch, pacing in a tight circle that makes her long red hair swing back and forth. When she comes to Dick, he welcomes her with open arms and lets Raya hug him as though she’ll never see him again. Raya's arms bracket Dick's waist and she smells familiar and safe as she holds Dick tightly.

Eventually, Raya pulls back from the hug.

"I have a little money saved up from my allowance," she says lowly. "And I know Calvin would give you what he has too. New York is expensive."

"I can do that to you guys," Dick says.

Raya doesn't even give Dick much of a chance to argue with her.

"I want to help," she says simply, "And so does Calvin. So don't argue." She crosses her arms over the stretchy top of her black outfit and watches Dick as though she's expecting him to bolt from then. "You'll call?"

Dick tries to smile and speak past the lump in his throat.

"The second I get to a phone and as often as I can after that."

Raya hugs him again and tucks her face in against the side of his neck.

"I'm going to miss you, Dick," she says in a choked up voice. "Promise me you won't forget about us."

"I won't," Dick promises immediately.

How _could_ he forget about them? Maybe they're not related by blood, but the circus is his family. Raya, Ray, and Calvin are his friends and his family and if not for how much he's cried in the past few days over his parents and over his loss, feeling Raya try not to cry against him would do him in all over again. Dick settles for rubbing one hand over Raya's back through her dress and murmuring what are supposed to be comforting words.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Raya," he promises. "I'll call every week and write once I get an address of my own. Take care of Ray and Calvin for me, okay?"

Sniffling, Raya nods against Dick's neck and then leans back. Red rims her green eyes and the tip of her nose is swollen and pink from her crying.

"I'll send Calvin with the money when he comes in to feed Zitka." She offers him a watery smile and reaches over to ruffle his hair. "I wish you could stay, but I -- I get it. Be safe. Okay?"

Dick nods.

"Okay."

*

The distraction goes off without a hitch and Dick makes it to Zitka's private car without anyone noticing him. He dozes off against Zitka's warm side, lulled to sleep by the elephant's soft noises and the way that her car still _feels_ like home to him as the late-setting sun leaves the train car at a comfortable temperature.

When Dick wakes up, he has a moment where he doesn't know where he is. He bolts up from Zitka's warm body and glances around with wide eyes until he registers Calvin's lanky form hauling in the bag of custom feed that they feed Zitka at night. Rubbing his eyes, Dick waits until Calvin comes closer before he speaks.

"How long have we been running?" Dick asks in a voice that is still fuzzy with sleep. Calvin shrugs.

"Not long," he says, "Maybe a half hour. No more than an hour though. The police were searching for you for the longest time after we did our distraction, but Raya convinced them you took off so they headed out to find you." Calvin turns away from Dick and tears open the top of the bag of food so that he can pour it into the trough bolted down within reach of Zitka's questing trunk.

"She sent stuff for you," Calvin calls over his shoulder. "They're in your suitcase."

"I told her I didn't need the money," Dick mutters, making a face.

"It's not just money," Calvin says. "She grabbed some food for you and one of Harry's old phones in case you get the money to turn it on." Once he feeds Zitka, Calvin comes and drops down beside Dick on the hay-stuffed mattress that protects the elephant's knees from the hard steel floor of the train car. "She's been crying on us all day, you know."

Dick sighs. "Rub it in, Calvin," he mutters. "It's not like I feel bad enough already." He looks at Calvin. "Is Ray freaking out yet?"

Calvin wobbles one hand from side to side.

"A little," he admits. "It's not much if you don't know what you're looking for, but I think Raya's crying is what's really doing it for him. I think -- I think Raya told him you really did run away."

It makes sense. It's not that Raymond always wants to do good. No. Ray likes to be right and he likes people to know when he's done something they'd like. If Raya had told him Dick's plan, Dick would probably be well on his way to spending the rest of his childhood in a grungy group home or something just as bad.

Dick sighs and rubs the back of one hand over his cheek.

"He's going to be pissed when he finds out the truth."

"So?" Calvin's voice takes on a steely note. "Let him be pissed. Raya and I can handle him."  The vehemence in Calvin's voice startles Dick, but after that, the two of them lapse into a mostly comfortable silence as the rocking of the train threatens to send them off to sleep. As Dick's eyes start to feel heavy, Calvin speaks up and jolts him from that half-asleep state.

"You’ll come back," Calvin says and they both ignore the faint wobble in his soft voice. "You’ll come back and perform with us right? You'll help make the circus better won't you?"

With Boston Brand long gone and the Graysons' death a fresh wound, Haly's Circus is going to have a lot of work to do before people will trust the circus again -- before they'll come and trust that the night will end with cheers instead of screams.

Dick nods his head and reaches for Calvin’s hand in a way he couldn't do if they were still in the circus proper, surrounded by their friends and their families and all of their expectations.

"Yeah, Cal," he says in a soft whisper. "Of course I will."

*

Two hours later when the circus train pulls to a stop at a loading station outside of New York, Dick gets off and starts to tug his suitcase behind him as he heads in the direction of the traffic that he can hear above the rumbling noises from the trains around him.

His parents' papers don't give him much to go on.

All he has is a Manhattan address for Grant's Gym printed neatly in his father's blocky handwriting and a phone number scrawled in his mother's elegant cursive script.

Dick has no idea who Ted Grant was to his parents or who the man will be to him, but it's a start. Or rather, it will be a start once Dick finds a way to get to his gym. Dick sighs and starts trudging towards the street and traffic in the distance. What taxi driver will take a twelve-year-old clear across town, Dick doesn't know, but he has to try.


	2. Chapter 2

Eight Years Later...

**_MEMBERS OF A RING OF THIEVES FOUND BOUND AND BEATEN SENSELESS IN THEIR HIDEOUT: ROGUE VIGILANTE_ ROBIN _STRIKES AGAIN_**

The newspaper crumples with a loud, crinkling sound underneath Bruce Wayne's big hands. He frowns at the newsprint smearing underneath his fingertips and narrows his eyes at the surprisingly sharp photograph plastered in full color on the front page of the section in the New York Times that has been dedicated to superheroes (sightings, fights, and gossip) since the first cape-wearing heroes showed their faces in the early forties.

Caught midway through an impressive split kick, the handsome young hero making the Sunday morning news doesn't look a thing like the heroes that influenced Bruce on his own path through crime-fighting.

Robin looks more like a peacock than he does a superhero with the brightness of his costume. Wearing what Bruce assumes to be a Kevlar-compound dyed dark blue except for slashes of gold and pale blue that put him in mind of feathers, Robin doesn't look like much.

In fact, if not for the way the hero looks almost joyful in the photograph as he fights two street thugs at the same time, Bruce could almost think that he's looking at a still from a film rather than a photograph.

More than that, the boy's costume looks like something Bruce remembers seeing many years ago. His face seems familiar as well, sharp features half-hidden underneath a domino mask. Bruce recognizes the face emblazoned across the front of the paper, but he can't quite put the pieces together beyond the faintest bits of a memory that remains half-forgotten.

The full content of that memory escapes Bruce, his traitorous brain giving him only a few scraps of the full memory in order to whet his figurative teeth.

The crackling tunes of amusement park music --

Screaming echoing in his ears --

There's something familiar about Robin, something that lingers just outside of his thoughts. It's not the only reason why Bruce is interested the young vigilante, but it's one of the ones that Bruce dares not voice aloud even in Alfred's usually accepting presence.

"This is the second time this month, Alfred," Bruce mutters just loud enough for his loyal butler to hear from his vantage point near the sideboard at the far side of the dining room. "From all accounts, Robin isn't working with the JSA or the League and he's been seen with Deathstroke more times than I feel comfortable counting. I feel as though he's doing more harm than good."

Alfred comes closer to the dining room table.

"Some might say the same about you, Master Bruce," he says in a deadpan tone as he starts to collect the remains of Bruce's half-eaten breakfast. Ever the voice of reason, Alfred offers a suggestion. "Perhaps you could give the boy a chance to properly prove himself. New York has its fair share of legacy heroes and I'm certain that the JSA will step in to handle any problems that arise."

Bruce frowns. He slaps the paper down and then stares in silence at the brightly costumed vigilante.

"I've done my research, Alfred," Bruce says in a firm tone. "This boy, this _Robin_ , is a hard hitter. I've lost track of how many serious injuries he's caused people in the heat of a fight." Staring down at Robin's smiling visage, Bruce feels anger take hold of him.

"He's reckless," Bruce says with a hint of a snarl in his voice. "He's reckless and young and too damn busy chasing fame to keep track of how hard he hits." Gesturing at the paper, Bruce doesn't bother waiting for Alfred to gift him with a response before he pushes forward with his rant. "Already, the police suspect that he's responsible for critically injuring two home invaders in the area around the JSA's headquarter. If they won't do anything to test him, perhaps --"

"Perhaps it's best of you to get involved, sir?" Alfred asks in a neutral tone. "I doubt the JSA will approve of outside interference if the boy is one of their own." Alfred's voice holds no censure, but Bruce reacts as though the other man has chastised him.

"Robin is trouble," Bruce says, frowning up at Alfred.

Alfred dips his head in a nod.

"That may well be the case," he says, "But are you really the one to make that decision?"

"I see what you're trying to do, Alfred," Bruce says sotto voce. "But I can't just stand by and do nothing. What if he turns from putting criminals in tractions to putting them in the morgue? The JSA has him on watch related to a death in Europe for several months now. What if he tries something similar over here?"

Overcome with passion, Bruce slaps his palms down on top of the dining room table and then pushes himself up out of his chair.

"I'll need you to start making the usual arrangements for me to travel to New York this week."

Alfred's mouth thins with disapproval, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.

"How long will you be away, sir?"

Bruce glances down at the newspaper still resting half-crumpled in front of Bruce's seat at the table. Robin's smiling face stands out at him, sharp even in the smudged newsprint.

"I'm not sure," Bruce admits. "No more than a week." Bruce glances in the direction of the room that holds the clock entrance to the cave. "If you need me, I'll be downstairs. I have research that needs attending to before I leave."

"Very good, sir," Alfred says in response. The older man turns as if to leave with Bruce's plates, but then stops suddenly. "I apologize for speaking out of turn, but perhaps you should treat this as more of... a reconnaissance mission rather than a fight to win."

Bruce allows himself to smile at his butler.

"You think I should leave the suit at home?"

"Oh heavens no," Alfred says, with a smile of his own on his lips. "I don't think New York would survive if you didn't have your favorite outlet for dealing with stress. Take the suit, but promise me you won't use it to terrorize that Robin fellow."

Bruce nods his head to show that he understands.

"I'll keep any terrorizing to a minimum, Alfred."

"I suppose that's all we can really hope for."

*

[ ](http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/MissSynph/media/bb/ScreenHunter_03Oct241716.jpg.html)

*

Two days after Alfred makes the travel arrangements, Bruce walks into Ted Grant's gym in Manhattan.

Visiting Ted is like stepping back in time.

"You haven't changed a thing, have you?" Bruce asks, glancing around the front office at the faded posters and yellowing papers about bouts from long ago.

Bruce waves a hand in the direction of the massive poster that has held a position in the office from as far back as Bruce can remember it.

"If you're trying to have a secret identity here, I'm not sure that keeping a poster of your old Wildcat costume is the best idea."

Ted offers Bruce a toothy grin and slaps him, open-handedly in between his shoulders.

"I'm not like you, Brucie," he says as Bruce tries (and fails) to hide his wince at the friendly smack that threatens to send him sprawling. "The only people out for my blood are as old as I am. All my enemies are in the ground or in nursing homes."

Still smiling, Ted moves to stand beside the corner of his desk that faces the open door that opens out to the rest of the gym.

"So tell me, kid: What brings you to Manhattan?"

Bruce shrugs, not yet ready to lay all his cards out on the table.

"A little bit of business. A little sight-seeing for old times' sake," he says. "Nothing serious yet even though I do have a lead on a case. I'll let you know if anything comes up that requires JSA assistance."

"Good to know," Ted says as he taps his fingers over the top of his desk. "I'd hate to think that something big and bad was running around my neck of the woods." He smiles slightly. "Even after all I've seen, the problems coming from Gotham still give me nightmares at night."

"If you want nightmares," Bruce says, smiling easily at his former mentor. "Try looking at some of the things that Constantine fights on a regular basis. Some of those fiends make the Joker look like a pampered pet."

Ted shudders and shakes his head, still smiling although the expression fades somewhat at the mention of otherworldly horror.

"Enough of that," Ted says. "You came here to sightsee. There's no better trip to the past than walking around my old gym."

Ted walks out the door with Bruce following at his heels.

"With the last expansion, the place is just modern enough that I have half a dozen prizefighters coming in to train for matches on a regular basis, but it's still the same gym where I used to read Captain America comics whenever I wasn't getting my ass handed to me."

Ted gives Bruce a brief, but thorough tour of the gym before telling Bruce to "stay a while and we'll have lunch, my treat," on his way back to his office.

Bruce decides to take Ted up on his offer. After all, it's been a long time since Bruce has been in New York and it's been longer still since Bruce has set foot in Ted's gym.

One day of downtime before diving headfirst into unreliable leads and chasing down information about the vigilante whose presence brought Bruce to Manhattan won't kill Bruce.

Ted's gym is a little larger now, but it's still the same old gym that Bruce remembers working out at. It's a nice gym, old with faded posters of boxing heavyweights from years gone by, but at eleven in the morning it’s all but empty when compared to some of the big gym chains that line nearby streets. Bruce counts five people working in the gym: two older men boxing in a ring near the back of the gym, a young woman with long blond hair beating the stuffing out of a heavy bag and--

The two men sparring in the big ring could be brothers. They’re of a height with one another, both good looking young men with dark hair and golden brown skin stretched over lean frames. Bruce watches them spar in silence, taking in the way that they move and pull stances and kicks from multiple martial arts disciplines.

He’s so focused on the men fighting in front of him, that he almost misses Ted’s return to his side until the other man speaks and startles him.

"My boys are something aren’t they," Ted says, voice brimming with pride.

Bruce blinks.

"Your boys," he repeats. "I didn't know you had any children."

Ted hums in what sounds like assent and then gestures at the two men now grappling.

"The one in the black shorts? That’s Tom," he says with a fond smile on his face. "He showed up four years ago after his ma passed and he’s been with me ever since."

"And the other one," Bruce asks, gaze focusing on the other man trying his best to pin Ted’s son to the mat. With long black hair hanging loose and wavy around his shoulders, the man wrestling with Tom is attractive in a way that no one person has a right to be. In an instant, Bruce knows that the young man is entirely his type. "Is he one of yours too?"

The hopeful note in Bruce's voice is quickly dashed by Ted's next words.

"Might as well be," Ted replies, directing a knowing look in Bruce's direction. "Dick's been with me for eight years and I still can’t get the kid to sit down for more than a few minutes at a time." Ted lapses into silence beside Bruce and together they watch Tom pin Dick to the mat and hold him for a full ten-count despite the other man’s steady squirming. "His parents were capes too you know."

Ted's use of past tense makes Bruce feels a twinge of sympathy in his chest for the other orphan that pushes aside the attraction growing inside of him for a moment.

Keeping his tone light, Bruce asks, "Anyone I know?"

"His folks were the Graysons. Small town superheroes," Ted supplies, "They weren’t big enough for the League or the JSA to pick up as regulars, but they did their best with what they had. I helped when I could, but it wasn't good enough. They got on the wrong side of a criminal gang in your town and Tony Zucco had them taken out."

When Bruce makes a soft noise, Ted nods his head.

"Now you remember them, right?"

Bruce nods. "I don't know how I could have forgotten them," Bruce confesses. "I was there that night."

"I know," Ted says.

"How --"

"The kid has a good memory," Ted says. "He remembers Batman showing up and grabbing the guy that killed his parents. He remembers you too, even if it's only the mask."

Several moments of silence pass as Bruce tries his hardest to connect the good looking man sparring in the ring to the hazy memories of a little boy in a bright circus costume. Before Bruce can wind up trapped in an endless cycle of trying to force his memories to cooperate with him, Ted snorts and disrupts his thought process entirely.

"Dick keeps up with superheroes like he's getting paid to do it," Ted says with a fond smile on his face. "He's the biggest Batman fan I've ever met. He's not a big fan of Bruce Wayne though, so you have your work cut out for you if you want him to like you."

Apparently, Ted _has_ noticed the way that Bruce looks at Dick.

Bruce thinks to the reports on the young vigilante wandering around the city and tries to connect the bright-colored wannabe hero with the attractive young man talking to Ted’s son and gesturing wildly. He knows the thought is out there, but he voices it nonetheless.

"If he’s the son of two heroes," Bruce says, voice low in case the boy has metahuman abilities on top of having two superheroes for parents, "Is there a chance that he’s that Robin character making a mess of Manhattan?"

At Bruce's question, Ted lets out a braying burst of laughter that echoes loudly enough to grab the attention of Tom and Dick as the two young men get out of the ring after their sparring bout.

"That he’s _what_? Trying to be a hero in between working two jobs and trying to pay for college and rent on minimum wage? You can't be serious, Bruce."

Chastened, Bruce ducks his head and tries to ignore the way that Ted has always been able to make him feel like a child without even trying.

"You’re right," he admits. "That's a little far-fetched even for our line of work." He watches Tom and Dick toss banter back and forth with easy smiles on their faces and then glances at Ted.

"Let's invite them both to lunch," Bruce suggests without thinking.

 Even with Ted standing there and smiling at him, there's something about the thought of looking out for Dick that makes Bruce feel an uncharacteristic sort of warmth in his chest. Dick _is_ attractive, that much is obvious. Even with his connection to Ted, Bruce can't warn himself off from wanting to see more of the young man. Lunch in a public place might just ease the way for Bruce to spend some time with the young man on a later visit to Manhattan.

"I'll cover the bill. It'll be like old times again."

When Ted begins to protest, Bruce cuts him off firmly, staying polite as he does so because he's been rude to a great many people, but he's not about to start it with the famous Wildcat. One of the few people that Bruce has lost to over the years and another father figure along the same lines as Alfred, Ted is someone that Bruce wouldn't _dare_ be rude to.

"It's the least that I can do to thank you for everything you've done for me over the years."

Ted closes his mouth with an audible snapping noise. A smile quickly replaces the flabbergasted look on his face.

"In that case --"

With a truly devious smile on his face, Ted turns to his two sons. Cupping his hands around his mouth in order to form a makeshift megaphone with them, Ted shouts at the two young men.

"Go shower and put on some decent clothes, both of you. Bruce Wayne is taking us to lunch."

Bruce is probably imagining the pang of pain radiating from where his wallet is located in one of his pockets.

Probably.

*

Money talks.

One look at Bruce's face and everyone in the restaurant bends over backwards in order to please him.

The hostess rushes past the line of black-suited stockbrokers and a fair amount of celebrities in order to lead them to a table -- one of the best in the house, Bruce guesses, judging from the amount of dirty looks he and the others get as they walk past already seated patrons. Before Bruce even has a chance to sit down across from Dick at their table, half the restaurant's staff surrounds them with eager smiles on their faces.

Waiters take their orders and in record time, their food comes out on gilded carts. Bruce estimates that it takes a grand total of twenty minutes for them to go from the front of the restaurant to eating the high quality cuisine.

In this case, money doesn't just talk. It screams at the top of its lungs.

"Is this what it's like every time you go out, Mr. Wayne?" Dick asks halfway through a rather plentiful chef salad, eyeing one waiter warily as he lingers just off to the side as though Bruce will call for him at any time.

He's not even their original waiter, Bruce notes with a minor frown creasing his forehead. Watching the parade of waiters circling their table with all of the cheer with which one would eye a set of circling sharks, Dick visibly wilts, jabbing at his salad with the prongs of his fork as displeasure turns down his mouth.

Dick only seems to frown harder when the staff falls all over themselves in their determination to make their mark on Bruce with their service.

"I'd hate it if I had all of these people trying to get me to notice them."

"It's all part of the territory, Dick," Bruce says, setting down his knife and fork with a clatter.

When Bruce tries to offer Dick the same charming smile that has won him the hearts of millions (and a top spot in every "Most Handsome Bachelor" list on the east coast for the past six years), Dick rolls his big blue eyes as though he couldn't possibly care less.

"I'm not like them, you know," Dick says, annoyance seeping into his voice as he watches Bruce warily.

Beside him, Tom opens his mouth as though he wants to interject and ease the heightening tension levels at their table, but a sharp glare from Dick's eyes silences him immediately.

"I don't want your money or whatever, so you don't have to pretend to like me just because Ted took me in. It's cool. You don't have to try so hard."

Taken aback, Bruce blinks at Dick several times. He even glances at Ted in a silent bid for help that goes unanswered and leaves him glancing back at Dick as his brain scrambles to find something, anything to make things go smoothly. With a great deal of effort, Bruce forces back the initial urge to blurt out something uncouth like "I'm not pretending".

Eventually Bruce settles on one of the oldest lines of small talk in the book.

"Are you enjoying your salad, Dick?"

The young man gives a noncommittal shrug in response, shoulders working under the soft fabric of a grey and black Henley that shapes to his body.

"I guess," Dick mutters down at his plate as he brushes his fingers through his dark hair, pulling the wavy black strands out into some small semblance of order as they fall against his neck. "I'd enjoy it a lot more if it didn't cost as much as the books for one of my classes, but I guess that you rich guys don't believe in affordable eating." He looks over at where Tom is busy tucking into a steak the size of his head and then turns his attention back to Bruce. "But I suppose your heart was in the right place..."

With that, Dick makes a point of turning his attention away from Bruce. The foursome lapses into polite conversation after that, focusing on little comments about their food and the overly attentive waiters hovering just within earshot.

Every attempt that Bruce makes at starting small talk with Dick goes sour. By the time a waitress comes with dessert menus and refills for their respective drinks, Bruce is at his wits end with trying to find an acceptable topic of conversation while Ted laughs openly beside him.

"What do you go to college for?" Bruce asks, fully expecting to get his question shot down like all the other questions that he's directed Dick's way. When Dick actually hesitates instead of shutting Bruce down immediately, Bruce allows himself to feel a small modicum of hope.

Dick sets his menu down and, for the first time all day, looks at Bruce with something other than mild annoyance tinting his gaze.

"I'm majoring in sports medicine," Dick says. "I see too many people get injured when working out or even while sparring at Ted's gym and the one I work at. I want to help people."

"Like your parents did?"

Bruce knows he's said the wrong thing the moment that the words leave his mouth.

Dick's shoulders stiffen and his mouth tightens, turning down into a frown that makes him look his age and older at the same time. He looks vulnerable for a moment, paling and wincing as though Bruce has just yanked the bandage off a fresh wound, and then the hurt expression slides right off of his face. Anger swiftly replaces it.

"What my parents did led to their deaths, Mr. Wayne," Dick says tightly as he stares down at the table. "And it's none of your damn business."

Pushing up out of his chair, Dick looks at the other men sitting at the table and musters a wan smile for Ted and Tom. For Bruce, Dick spares a withering glare that would leave a lesser man quaking in his boots.

"I have to go," he says, already looking towards the door with his eyes narrowed and his body filled with tension. "Thank you for lunch Mr. Wayne."

"You don't have to leave," Bruce says softly, speaking up despite every cell in his body screaming for him to let it go and to let _Dick_ go.

"I do," Dick says softly. He glances down at his watch and then swears vehemently underneath his breath as he looks at the time. "Even if you weren't nosy as hell, I'd have to leave to go to work anyway so don't think too highly of yourself right now."

Before Bruce can apologize, Dick is gone. The moment that he leaves, Ted moves to take the seat across from Bruce.

"Dick works across town at another gym," Tom supplies helpfully after ordering a chocolate soufflé from off the gleaming silver tray. "They've been working on a routine for his toddler class for months and that's why he had to dine and dash like that."

Pausing to let the waitress take set the plate down in front of him, Tom makes a show of gathering his thoughts together.

"And how nosy you are can't have helped. No one talks about Dick's parents. Not even us."

Tom smiles at Bruce and it barely reaches his dark blue eyes.

"Maybe he'll be nicer the next time he sees you -- if you're less nosy than you were today, that is."

Ted chimes in.

"You really blew it," Ted says, speaking in a serious voice that makes Bruce feel like he's on the receiving end of some quality parenting despite being well on his way to forty. "You brought up a sore point with him and it's going to take some time for him to realize that you weren't trying to hurt him. You messed up and you're going to have to fix it."

"I need to apologize," Bruce says, and he means it. Dick isn't like one of the debutants that Bruce offends on a regular occasion. He's not someone that Bruce insults on purpose so that he can breathe something beyond some overly sweet floral perfume. Dick is... someone that Bruce would like to get to know better.

And Ted is right. Bruce did mess up with Dick.

"But -- Will you help me figure this out?"

Ted settles back in his chair. "Think about why you want to apologize," Ted says, speaking with a sharp note in his voice that tells Bruce that the other man has certainly observed how attentive he's been towards Dick. "If you're doing it for the right reasons, then we'll talk, but if you're doing this for the wrong reasons, you should just quit while you're ahead."

The look on Ted's face leaves no doubt as to what those wrong reasons are. Bruce feels his blood run cold.

 "I'd like to get to know him," Bruce says, making up his mind on the spot. "I wasn't thinking and I didn't mean to hurt him. I _am_ sorry." Bruce isn't good at being sincere. That's more Superman's thing. But he tries to inject meaning into his words as he looks at Ted and Tom and feels the weight of their stares on his skin.

Ted's mouth thins with a frown and then the lines of his mouth relax.

"For starters: don't push him to accept your apology right away just because you think you're doing the right thing. Wait a few days and if you see him, don't mess things up more. It won't be easy and if I think you're doing more harm than good, I'll kick your ass myself."


	3. Chapter 3

It takes three nights of increasingly easy patrols before Dick realizes that something's different about his normal route.

Friday is a slow night.

Patrol goes easier than usual and _that's_ a sign if Dick has ever seen one. Easy patrol on the start of the weekend? _Something_ has to be wrong.

There are fewer criminals around the area that Dick patrols every night and of the criminals he does catch, most of them confess in mere moments. By the time it hits midnight, Dick is nearly out of zip strips and he's starting to feel unnerved by the way criminals are just flinging themselves at him. It's almost as if they want to be taken in by a nicer vigilante (although the thought makes Dick snicker into his arm).

If he's the nicest vigilante in the neighborhood, then something's definitely wrong.

Something has all of the usual suspects practically begging to spend a night or two in lock-up and it has next to nothing to do with how threatening Dick is as Robin.

Later, Dick will probably do his best to drum up leads, but for now, he's hungry enough that it's the only thing he can think of.

Patting his rumbling stomach through his suit, Dick laughs and says, "Alright, alright. I'll go get dinner."

*

Halfway through Dick’s dinner (seafood stir-fry from the good, cheap Chinese place a block from Dick's makeshift headquarters where the owners don’t blink twice at a cape swinging down from the roof to pay them with sweaty singles), Tiffany Fox -- dressed in the sleek black and silver suit that she wears as the vigilante Ursa Major-- drops down beside him and steals two pieces of shrimp before Dick has time to say her name.

Dick likes Tiffany. She’s smart and funny, mean when she needs to be, and she’s one of the few people that Dick has in this world -- in and out of the costume. So the shrimp stealing can slide.

For now.

“I know you probably haven't heard the news,” Tiffany says after swallowing her stolen pieces of seafood and starting to eye the rest of Dick’s main course.

She settles instead for stealing his last fortune cookie and then settles with her back resting against the edge of the roof. One gloved hand slides into the tight coils of her curly hair in a habitual gesture that Dick knows well from their time spent working together. Something has Tiffany uncomfortable and that is more worrying than all the criminals behaving out of pattern put together.

"News?"

“Batman is in town and already there’s a mass exodus of criminals. Looks like we'll be out of work until he leaves.”

Dick makes a rude noise around his mouthful of noodles and scallops. Chewing and swallowing takes several more minutes and then Dick licks the front of his teeth to make sure that they're clean before he speaks.

"That explains it."

Offering Tiffany what he hopes is a bright (and food free) smile, Dick tries to cheer his friend up.

“Hey, I don’t mind the free time,” Dick says, holding out the half empty cartoon of stir-fry when Tiffany's stomach rumbles loudly in the night. “Besides, knowing my luck, this’ll be when Deathstroke shows up again and decides he needs help to run a mission.”

Dick reaches for one of the cans of orange juice scattered around his legs and pops the top before continuing on with his train of thought.

“Free time never lasts. Batman’ll go back to Gotham and it’ll be back to normal in a few days. Remember when Superman showed up? Peace and quiet followed by hell on Earth for three months straight while the JSA was out of state.”

“Says you.” Tiffany smiles, mouth curving up around the piece of shrimp sticking out of her mouth. Speaking with food sticking out of her mouth should look disgusting, but even gross habits look cute with Tiffany's mask. "I got three times the work and caught six different bounties that first month. I _like_ it when those heroes come into town and scare everyone senseless."

Dick laughs softly and then empties the can of juice with several long swallows. He sets the can down with a soft clatter and then grins at Tiffany as he pops the tab on another can.

"You would. Batman seems like your type."

Tiffany snorts.

"More like yours," she says. "Between him and Bruce Wayne showing up in the city, it's like the universe is just throwing eye-candy at you." Nothing escapes Tiffany's notice for very long, and from the second that Dick came home complaining about Bruce three days ago she's been eying him with a knowing smile. "You should just give the guy a break and ask him out like he wants. I don't know why else he'd be hanging around the gym after you walked out on him."

"He still hasn't apologized," Dick mutters, still feeling a sting at the memory. "I thought he'd do it and be done, but I don't think he's going to do it." Dick huffs and then traces his index fingers around the rim of his can.

Tiffany snorts again.

"Give him an opening," she says. "I know you. You've probably been ridiculously polite but distant. He probably doesn't even know that he's your type."

"I don't have a type," Dick snaps.

"Sure you do," Tiffany says, already holding up one gloved hand so that she can start rattling off details. "You like 'em tall, strong, and strange. If they're a little mean, you like them even more." Ignoring the dirty look Dick shoots her way, Tiffany pushes on. "I've seen how you look at my magazines whenever they do their hot guy countdowns and he's at the top of the list. If he's not your type, then I don't know why you keep bringing him up all the time."

Dick's mouth opens and closes as he struggles to speak.

"I don't -- I just --"

"We've been roommates for two years," Tiffany points out. "You're an open book to me."

"I hate you," Dick mutters without any heat in his voice. "Can we change the subject now? Please?"

Tiffany devours the stir-fry and then sets the little cardboard container out of the way so that she can grab one of the extra cans of juice piled around Dick's legs.

"Have you met him before?"

“Him?”

“Batman,” Tiffany says, impatiently. “You told me to change the subject and all you heroes from Gotham know each other right? What’s the big bat like?”

Dick rolls his eyes.

“I’m not _from_ Gotham.”

“Sure you’re not,” Tiffany replies, pulling at one curly strand of her hair until it’s straight and then letting it go so it can snap back against the rest of her hair. “But you came from there right?”

“I was born in Florida,” Dick points out, feeling an uncomfortable heat warm his cheeks right underneath the bottom part of his domino mask. “My folks and I were just passing through Gotham when --”

It’s been eight years, but Dick still can’t think about his parents’ death without feeling a pang in his chest. He stops talking and takes a sip from his can of juice so that he can pull himself together. Tiffany knows the story and she definitely doesn’t need Dick blubbering all over her in public.

“I thought _you_ were from Gotham, Ursa.”

"Yeah," Tiffany says, shrugging.

Dick waits impatiently for her to continue speaking.

“It’s not like I ever saw the big bat,” she mutters. “My parents kept me far away from vigilantes and all that drama. I guess they thought that the big guy would be a bad influence on me or something.”

“And just look at you now,” Dick says, voice squeaking a bit from his attempts at keeping a straight face. Not only is Tiffany a well-known vigilante as Ursa Major, she's scary enough that criminals usually run fleeing the second that they see her silhouette (rather than cracking up like they usually do when they see his costume).

“Shut up, Robin!” Tiffany punches Dick in the arm and then laughs when he winces and rubs at his shoulder. "So where are you headed after this?"

Dick sighs.

"The JSA is busy with some legacy villain or something so I'm not needed on anything more than my usual patrol." Dick tries to keep the sullen note out of his voice, but when Tiffany snickers into her juice, he sticks his tongue out at her.

"Hey, you'd be upset too. I'm trying to get the JSA to trust me and after the last thing with Deathstroke, only Ted's influence is keeping them from following me around and frowning at me."

Tiffany grins.

"What did you two do this time," she asks, already eyeing Dick eagerly as she awaits another story about her best friend's mentor. "It can't be anywhere near as bad as the time Stargirl showed up to be your backup only to find the warehouse clear and Huntress's tongue in your mouth."

Dick at least has the decency to blush.

"It wasn't like that," he mutters, mustering a glare for Tiffany. "I radioed for her to hang back _and_ I tried to explain myself. It's not my fault that she wasn't in the mood to listen." He huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. "And besides, this was worse."

"How much worse?"

"You know how we go and do jobs every once in a while?" Dick asks.

Tiffany nods. "You always disappear for a weekend or two and come back with a tan and shiny souvenirs," she says. "So? If it helps you pay the rent, who am I to judge?"

"I wish the JSA saw things the way you did," Dick mutters.

"Well... why don't they?" Tiffany asks. Dick sighs.

"Remember that job I took in Galonia two months ago?" When Tiffany nods, Dick sighs again and starts to tap his gloved fingers over the curve of his knee. "Someone -- someone _died_ because of what I did when I was with him. I went on patrol while he was busy and things got messy."

Tiffany widens her eyes and her fingers clench into fists.

"Someone died and you waited this long to tell me?"

Shrugging, Dick says, "I guess it took me a long time to figure out how. The JSA has been handling me like I was seconds away from killing everyone and I just -- I was worried."

Instead of reacting in anger, Tiffany reaches out and squeezes Dick's knee with a firm grip.

"I'm guessing that this is why the JSA has you on the back burner?"

"The guy was trying to kill me, but yeah, that's pretty much it." Dick says, lettings out a rude-sounding snort as he stretches out over the top of the roof.

"I thought they had rules and stuff," Tiffany says. "Self-defense isn't a crime."

"That'd mean that they'd have to acknowledge my existence as a legacy hero," he mutters. "It's more like Wildcat defended me and everyone else is pretending that I don't exist. They're calling it probation, but it's not like I do anything with the JSA in the first place."

With his penchant for hitting hard as well as his friendships with villains like Deathstroke, the JSA thinks they're right to keep him off the books. If not for Ted taking him back in and standing up for him, Dick wouldn't even warrant the courtesy of probation. He'd be in jail and that'd be the end of that. No questions asked. Dick sighs and rubs at his forehead.

"It's not like they're _wrong_. I did kill someone."

"Yeah," Tiffany says, "Someone that was trying to kill you. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even a warrant out for you arrest because the cops get it: self-defense is self-defense."

Rolling his eyes, Dick snorts.

"Apparently, there are different rules for superheroes working with the JSA," he says under his breath. "I get what they mean, but that doesn't mean that I like it."

Dick pushes both of his hands through his hair, yanking out the elastic band holding most of his thick black hair away from his face.

"Fuck! I think I need to go burn off some of my energy before I wind up doing something that gets me in trouble."

Tiffany waves Dick on.

"I saw Tomcat patrolling the east side," she says. "Head west and see if you can calm down a little. I'll clean up here." She slaps Dick's hand playfully when he offers it to her and then grins. "I'll meet you back at the apartment when you're done patrolling and we can have breakfast together. Stay safe, Robin."

"I will," Dick promises as he scoops up his grappling hook off a pile of plastic bags from the Chinese takeout place. "See you at dawn."

The last thing that Dick hears as he flies off towards the north side of the sprawling neighborhood is Tiffany shouting at him to "bring home some damn milk this time."

*

Things on the north side of town are just as weird as they were where Dick left Tiffany and the threat of Ursa Major to serve as an additional deterrent.

Everyone on the street is supposed to be there and halfway through his first pass around, Dick sees several instances of known repeat offenders running as though hunted. Dick actually finds himself bored enough that his attention seems to flicker. He glances over and nearly misses a mugging in progress as he bounds over rooftops and the wide gaps between buildings.

It's easy for Dick to drop his grapple on a nearby rooftop and drop down into the dark alley when he notices the silver glint of a knife's blade in the darkness around him.

Landing on the ground hard enough to send shockwaves vibrating up his legs, Dick flows into motion, easily disarming a wiry-looking man with a knife clutched in his right hand. Dick dislocates two of the man's fingers and then sends the knife flying off over his shoulder to the mouth of the alley. While the mugger in front of him is busy clutching his hand and groaning with pain, Dick kicks his legs out from underneath him and sends him sprawling across the ground.

The other mugger glances back and forth between Dick in his Robin costume and the young woman that he and his pal had been harassing. He holds his hands up in front of him with the palms facing outward and takes a small step towards Dick.

"I know you," the mugger says, voice heavy with an accent that Dick can't quite place. "You're one of them cape types. Well I'm unarmed and the broad's fine. Aren't you supposed to let me go?"

Over the mugger's shoulder, the young woman shakes her head. She looks at Dick with tears brimming in the corners of her eyes and that just makes Dick's decision for him. Dick relaxes his stance and crosses his arms over his chest as the big musclehead lumbers in his direction.

"You think I should let you go?" Dick smiles and he knows that it's not one of his nice ones. The man in front of him doesn't seem to have any sort of self-preservation instincts though and he nods, smiling at Dick as though he thinks he's got anything in common with the vigilante in front of him.

"Really?"

The mugger shrugs.

"I didn't hurt her." He glances back at the frightened young woman with a nasty little leer and licks his lips as though Dick isn't standing a few feet away from him. "Well, I didn't hurt her _much_ , but it's not like it's a big deal." 

The man laughs at the squeak of fear his would-be victim utters as she presses her back against the alley wall behind her.

"All I did was scare her a little."

Dick sees red.

He reaches out and snags the front of the mugger's shirt, yanking him closer so that he can use the other man's weight and momentum to heave him in the direction of his fallen friend. The two men collide together with a dull thud of flesh hitting flesh. It gives Dick a supreme sense of pleasure to kick both of the downed muggers in the ribs before he drops down into a crouch beside them and uses zip ties to bind them to each other.

Dick glances over his shoulder at the young woman still standing with her back pressed up against one of the alley's grimy walls.

"Will you be okay?" When she nods, Dick offers her a brief smile. "Good. I'm going to call the cops and you can press charges.... If you _want_ to press charges, that is."

"I do," the young woman blurts out. She picks her way through debris strewn across the alley and then gives the muggers a nasty look. "If you hadn't come along--" She shudders and hugs herself tightly. "Thank you. For saving me and for calling the cops."

Dick continues to smile even though all he wants is to go back and kick the two muggers until they're unable to hurt anyone else.

"You're welcome," Dick says as he reaches for one of his burner phones. "Once I call the cops, they'll be here in a few minutes. You'll be fine and I'll keep an eye out until you're gone."

*

When he looks up from calling the police on one of his burner phones, Dick swears he sees the flapping edge of a big black cloak disappearing over the top of the roof above his head. He shakes his head and sighs.

“I must be hallucinating,” Dick mutters under his breath. “There’s no way Batman would come all the way out here just to follow me around.” Dick puts his phone back in his belt and eyes the rooftop warily.

This isn't the first time this week that Dick has felt as though someone's been watching him. It's not even the first time for that _night_ that Dick swears he's seen a scallop-edged cloak swinging out of the corner of his eyes. Dick shivers and rubs his hands up over his biceps, shivering as a sudden chill rushes over his body.

The best thing that Dick could possibly do would be to go in the opposite direction, heading across town to his warm apartment and his roommate.

However, Dick has always been too curious for his own good. He climbs up the side of the wall easily, finding jutting pieces of brick for his gloves to grab onto as he does his best spider imitation. He could climb up the clunky, creaking fire escape,but that'd be like announcing his presence to whomever it is that might be waiting for him.

Climbing may not be easier, but it sure is quieter.

Dick heaves himself up over the top of the roof and slams face first into a hard body suit.  With his nose smarting from the pain of impact, Dick wobbles backwards and nearly falls right back over the edge of the roof. Only the firm grip of a massive hand in his collar keeps him from tumbling back down to ground level. When Dick realizes who has their hand curled against the end of his ponytail, his breath catches in his chest.

Larger than life and handsome even with a cowl obscuring half of his face, Batman is something else. Aside from the frown on his mouth, Batman looks like he's just stepped right out of some of Dick's fantasies.

Dick swears that he forgets how to breathe for a moment.

"You should be more careful," Batman says with a growl in his voice, stepping aside so that Dick can get on the roof properly. "You could have fallen."

"You were in my way," Dick says with a roll of his eyes behind his mask's white-out lenses. "If I fell, it'd be your fault." Dick crosses his arms across his chest. "So why have you been following me all week? That _was_ you, right?"

Batman ignores Dick's question in favor of glowering at him.

"You threw yourself down there without stopping to think," the other vigilante sears, nearly spitting the words out as he takes Dick's measure. He looks at Dick as though he finds him wanting in some way and that makes Dick tense up. "Who trained you to fight like that?"

Dick forces himself to relax in the face of that seemingly innocent question.

"A lot of people," he says easily, trying his hardest to pretend that he's not already trying to calculate the best path away from Batman's judging countenance in case things get dicey. "If you're asking about my kicks, I learned how to do those from training with Lady Shiva."

"And Deathstroke?" Batman can't possibly sound any more judgmental as he looks at Dick with a nasty little twist to one side of his thin-lipped mouth. That kills some of the attraction. "Did he train you as well?"

"Why ask if you already know the answer?" Dick lets his arms dangle at either side of his body, easing into a loose stance just in case Batman tries anything funny. "If you're here about something Deathstroke did, take it up with him when he gets back in town."

Dick takes a testing step forward, just to see if Batman will move out of his way, and then frowns when the bigger man actually snarls at him. Dick raises his hands, turning his palms outward to show that he's unarmed.

"What? What do you want?"

Batman sneers down at Dick, using his height to its full advantage.

"I want to know what someone like _you_ is doing working under the JSA," he says. "You were trained by criminals. You're responsible for critically injuring several people. How can you call yourself a hero?"

Dick sucks his teeth.

 "Like _you're_ any better," he mutters as he glares at Batman. "I read the papers, man. You're responsible for your fair share of critical injuries. Hell, you might even hurt more people than I ever have out here."

Face flushing underneath the bottom edges of his mask, Batman takes a step towards Dick.

"At least I'm not a killer. I've asked around about you, Robin. I don't know how you managed to get the JSA to cover for you, but it won't last."

"And here it comes," Dick murmurs underneath his breath, shoulders slumping because apparently, there's no such thing as privacy or accidents in the world of costumed heroes. It's the only thing that seems to matter to other vigilantes that hear about his mistake.

One day he'll find a member of the JSA that doesn't treat him like a potential villain for the way that he's prone to hitting hard first and asking questions second. One day, the fact that Ted treats him like a son and stands up for him won't get him looked at as though he's brainwashing the man. One day, Slade Wilson's training and his mistakes won't be the only thing that the JSA thinks of when they hear his name.

However, that day is a long time coming.

"If you're going to try and lecture me about this, just let me go. I've gotten this talk from people that actually like me."

Batman keeps walking towards Dick, frowning at him with a thunderous expression that probably makes criminals piss themselves, but only leaves Dick feeling mildly annoyed.

"You're not going anywhere just yet," Batman rumbles, glowering at Dick as though the firmness of his deep voice will make Dick tremble and confess to some myriad amount of sins that Batman has already judged him for and found him wanting. "I want to know why --"

Interrupting a vigilante that probably has no problem dangling him off a lamppost isn't the best idea in the world, but Dick's not in the mood to think about that. Feeling his face warm with his anger, Dick ignores Batman's scowl and the instinctive jerk of one hand to that blindingly bright yellow utility belt and steps forward himself.

"Why what?" Dick asks with a biting note in his voice that makes him sound nasty. "Why am I so damn cute? Or... do you want to know why my costume is so much nicer than yours?"

Dick smiles and makes it mean enough to match the jagged tone in his voice.

"You know what _I_ want to know? Why the hell are you following me around _my_ city when you have one of your own?"

Batman growls at Dick in response, baring his teeth at Dick as though he's some kind of wild animal instead of a grown man in a bat costume -- which isn't much better.

If Batman tries to bite him, Dick isn't sure what he'll do in response.

"Don't growl at me," Dick says sharply, almost wishing for a newspaper so that he can whack the other man on the nose. "You're not following me around New York out of the goodness of your heart and it's not like you're actually trying to help me out on patrol." He pauses to look Batman over from the top of his cowl to the bottom of his cape. "You don't like me. I get it. I even get why. But if you're going to judge me for something I had no choice in, you can't expect me to stand here and take it."

Dick makes to push past Batman and return to the far side of the rooftop where his grappling hook rests against a pile of long-forgotten roofing supplies, but the firm grip of one gauntleted hand around the curve of his bicep keeps him from going very far.

"Let go of me," Dick says as he forces the words out past his clenched teeth.

"I don't think so," Batman snaps. "I don't intend to chase you all around the city."

Dick scoffs.

"Like I'd let you catch me off guard again," Dick says with a nasty curl to his top lip. "If you really think I need a lecture from you, you can just go. Everyone has already let me know how disappointed they are in me and those are people whose opinions matter -- you're just some weird guy with a bat fetish."

Jerking his arm free of Batman's grip, Dick whirls around and jabs his finger at the bat symbol stretching across Batman's massive chest. With the thick material of his gloves, Dick barely feels the impact of his fingers to Batman's armored costume and the other vigilante barely seems to feel the effects of Dick's jab either.

"Stay out of my business, Batman."

Batman doesn't budge.

"You could hurt someone again --"

"The only person I want to hurt right now is _you_ ," Dick hisses, completely fed up with the frowning man in front of him. He scowls at Batman, hating the way that the other vigilante can make him lose control of his temper with just a few words and stern glares. "Just because you think you have a monopoly on putting criminals in traction, that doesn't mean you can treat me like _I'm_ one."

Batman's mouth twitches with a mocking smile.

"Aren't you, though?"

Dick feels a chill sweep through his body and he flinches as shame fills him for a second. The shame is replaced with anger though, and Dick lunges into action, knocking Batman down and riding his bigger body down to the roof. Dick doesn't manage to keep the upper hand for very long. While Dick gets in a few solid hits to Batman's broad torso and a nerve strike to a weak spot in the armored chest piece that would have been more effective had Batman been wearing slightly less armor than the average tank, Batman quickly winds up flipping them.

"You're not going to win this," Batman growls at Dick. "I'm not going to let you up." Despite Dick's ceaseless struggling underneath him, Batman pins Dick easily. He doesn't even seem to be slightly out of breath from wrestling with Dick. "You'll just try and escape again."

Rolling his eyes behind his mask's white-out lenses, Dick says, "Gee, I wonder why," in a droll tone of voice. 

Dick bucks underneath Batman's bigger body as the inexorable presence of his huge body starts to trip that part of Dick's brain that _hates_ being pinned. He manages to knock the other man off him when his knee slips on a slick patch of roofing material and Batman loses his hold on Dick.

Crawling backwards until his back hits the far end of the roof, Dick eyes Batman in silence for several seconds.

"If you're going to judge me about something that wasn't my fault, you can just stay over there and do it since you won't let me leave," Dick says, hating the faint tremor that he can feel in his hands. "I don't care if you don't let me off this roof until dawn; don't put your damn hands on me again."

Batman bares his teeth at Dick in a snarl almost as animalistic as the ones the tigers back at the circus would give after the vet was finished with them. He looks at Dick through the blanked out lenses in his cowl and says in a very decisive tone of voice.

“You've admitting to killing someone.”

Dick nods, admitting to it again because he’s had time to think about his mistakes and his bad choices made under pressure. Besides, it's not like it's a secret.

“Well it's not like lying about it will do me any good.”

Batman’s top lip curls and he _sneers_ at Dick as though he's looking at something nasty on the bottom of his boot.

“Killing makes you just as bad. It makes you a monster, a --”

Dick laughs in response, cutting Batman off before he can go on a rant.

“Is _that_ what you tell yourself?” Dick asks, interjecting despite how talking back to Batman makes him remember how his body aches from their tussle across the roof. “Do you judge cops for killing? Or soldiers? Or is it just people like me?” Dick licks his lips and pushes on, speaking fast just in case Batman decides to make an example out of him by dumping him off a roof. “Killing is a last resort. People were in danger. Lives could have been lost. What else could I have done?”

“You could have found a better way,” and here, the growl in Batman’s voice wavers a bit and almost offers Dick a clue as to who the man underneath really is. “You could have --”

“I could have let people die because I was too squeamish to do what needed to be done,” Dick says, voice low and filled with his own anger. “I did what I had to do to save lives  -- one of which was my own since there was no way I was getting out of that alley alive if that one guy still had his gun or access to any of the other weapons I found on him. You’re not going to make me feel guilty for something like that.”

Batman glowers at Dick, not even bothering to hide the rage that makes his big hands ball up into fists at his sides.

“You should feel guilty,” Batman bites out and the tremor in his gauntleted hands is all the more visible. “Killing is not the way.”

Dick frowns at Batman, already long past the end of his patience.

“Do you think I’d be here on a stinking rooftop with you if I didn’t know that?” Dick bites out, fingers flexing as he fights against the urge to push his hands into his hair and ruin the sleek ponytail that he keeps his hair in for patrol.  "You think I don't feel guilty enough already?"

Dick is so mad that he can hardly see straight.

“I could have gone with Deathstroke, worked for him after my training like he wanted. I could have been a villain, but I guess, I just wanted to be like you. I just wanted to have something in common with you.”

“You’re a killer,” Batman says, voice solemn. "I don't have anything in common with killers."

Dick closes his eyes behind his own mask and blows out a frustrated breath of air.

“So are most of the cops you hand crooks to in Gotham. If I was a cop, would that make a difference?”

Dick gets up and starts across the roof, moving towards where his grappling hook has been resting almost in a taunting way just out of reach.

“I was wrong to think that you’d care about anything but your own rules. Don’t worry; I’ll stay out of your hair while you’re in the city.”

Pausing to glance at where Batman is still frowning at him, Dick sighs and shakes his head.

"You know what sucks? For some reason, I thought you'd be different from the other heroes. I don't know why, but I thought you'd try to understand."

Dick gets one hand on his grapple before Batman speaks up again, voice low and filled with hint of contrition that makes Dick's heart flip-flop in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Robin,” Batman says, holding his hands up in surrender. “Maybe -- Maybe I was wrong to come on so strong. Maybe we could... talk?”

“Why?”

Normally, Dick is bright-eyed and polite to a fault, but it's late at night and he's been out of patience for the better part of an hour.

"Why the hell would I want to talk to someone who thinks that I'm a criminal?"

Crossing his arms over his chest makes Dick's shoulders throb with pain from hitting the roof underneath the weight of Batman's massive body. Dick has to _work_ to keep a wince of pain off his face. He glares at Batman and hopes he's projecting strength as opposed to sleepy sullenness.

"What do you have to say to me that's so important?"

Batman shrugs his big, broad shoulders. He doesn't quite offer Dick a thin-lipped smile, but the big lug is trying hard to seem non-threatening and that softens some of Dick's anger towards him.

“I don't know,” Batman admits. "You're not what I expected. Not at all. I thought I'd be seeing a younger version of Deathstroke, someone with no regrets about killing."

Dick utters a snorting bit of laughter.

"You really think that Deathstroke doesn't feel regrets for what he's done?"

Dick opens his mouth like he wants to say more, but then falls silent aside from a few soft and almost desperate giggles he can't muffle. Some things just aren't for Batman to know and Deathstroke's thought processes are pretty high on that list.

Standing across the roof from Batman, Dick shakes his head to clear it of thoughts about his mentor.

"You're not what I expected either," Dick says in a low voice, "And that's not a good thing. If you want to talk, you can try to find me some other night. Right now, I'm all out of patience."

When Dick leaves via his much-used grappling hook, he doesn't look back even though it almost kills him to focus forward. Dick wants to look back, wants to look at the man responsible for setting him firmly on his life's path, but after verbally and physically sparring with the man, glancing back at Batman would feel like some sort of failure.

And Dick can't have that.


	4. Chapter 4

When Dick goes to Ted's gym the next morning, he's not alone. Tiffany comes along with him, dressing down for a change instead of wearing her usual designer threads.

Ted greets them at the door with a mug of coffee in his hands.

"Tom said you were coming by," Ted says, pressing the mug into Dick's hands and ignoring it when Dick gives him a _look_. "He said you sounded pissed when you called, so I thought I should have coffee ready. What happened last night?"

Ted pushes open the door to his office and waits for Tiffany and Dick to go inside before he follows them in and locks the door behind them.

"All I could get outta him was that something went on last night."

Dick shoves a hand in his pocket and pulls out a plastic bag containing the smashed and melted remains of two tiny tracking devices.

"I ran into Batman last night," Dick bites out in a voice that trembles with rage. "He's like everyone else: assuming that I'm a criminal because I did what had to be done. He got me so mad that I wound up fighting with him."

Ignoring Tiffany's half-muffled snickering, Dick opens the plastic bag and tips out the crushed bits of plastic and wires onto the top of Ted's desk.

"At some point, the asshole actually slapped a tracker on me."

Ted frowns and touches one of the little bits of broken tracker.

"How long did it take you to find it?"

"Not long," Tiffany says before Dick can answer the question himself. "By the time he called me from the safe house, he'd already taken care of the trackers." Tiffany moves to perch on the edge of Ted's desk next to the tracking devices. "He smashed and microwaved them before coming home and then we popped it in the oven for a few minutes to mess them up some more."

"You two certainly weren't playing around," Ted says with an impressed note in his rumbling voice. "I don't blame you though. Batman _is_ fond of his tracking devices, and no one appreciates waking up in the middle of the night to find him perched on the edge of their bed."

Tiffany's nose wrinkles and her fingers curl up against the faded pink logo on the front of her favorite Columbia University sweatshirt.

"You know... The more I hear about Batman, the happier I am that my parents didn't let me try to follow him around." She looks upset for a second and then reaches out to squeeze one of Dick's hands in a firm grip. "He was a real jerk last night."

"He's a jerk on most nights," Ted says, "But I'll talk to him if I can get to him. The JSA takes care of our own and I take care of family."

Before Dick can open his mouth and say something utterly depressing, Ted steamrolls ahead.

"You're _my_ kid. No matter what you do, you're a good kid and you're _my_ kid. You and Tom are all I've got in this world. Maybe that makes me soft, but I don't care."

Tiffany gets off the desk with a little bounce in her step and moves to stand in front of Ted. She hugs him hard, squeezing the older man tightly enough that his face turns bright red, and then steps back until she stands next to Dick.

"You're a great dad," she says with a wide smile on her face that adds a sparkle to her dark brown eyes.

"You're just saying that because of Tom." Ted tries to play it off.

Dick snickers at the flush that further darkens Tiffany's cheeks with that revelation.

"You should work out with us today," Dick offers as his roommate tries to pull herself back together and hide her reaction underneath a neutral expression. "I swear we won't bring up your little crush. I don't have work or a test today so you can try to kick my ass all day until it's time for me to catch a few hours of sleep before heading out on patrol."

Tiffany gives Dick a measuring look. "You really don't have to go to class today? Not even for evaluations?"

"Even if I did have to do those, I wouldn't go," Dick says. "After what happened yesterday, I'm really not in the mood for telling professors how amazing they are." Tiffany knows about Dick's disastrous lunch with Bruce on top of his meeting with Batman, but Dick can tell that she isn't about to cut him any slack. "It's fine, Tiffany. It's not like they can drop my grade just for staying home at the end of the semester. I need the break to deal with Mr. Wayne."

Dick notices a warning glint in the depths of Tiffany's hazel eyes and he rushes to head her off.

"Don't get mad at me yet; just wait until he decides to show up and whisk Ted off to lunch or something. You'll see how exhausting that man is."

"My dad works for him," Tiffany points out in a dry tone of voice. "I think I'd be able to handle him better than you do considering Tam and I practically grew up in his company." Putting her hands on her hips, Tiffany shoots Dick a narrow-eyed glare. "I thought we got over this last night."

"Yeah," Dick grumbles, "But then I thought about it some more. He brought up my dead parents over lunch. Maybe he's not a good guy anyway."

Ignoring Dick for a moment, Tiffany glances at the door that leads to the main part of the gym.

"Do you think he's out there now?"

"Tiffany --"

Ted clears his throat before Dick and Tiffany can start arguing.

"I don't think Bruce will be coming by today," he says. "He said something about needing to do some work for a change before his vacation time is up. So you'll have to make do with Chinese takeout with me today instead the grub I've been bringing back for you."

"You're treating us today?" Dick asks, grinning despite the odd pang in his stomach that comes after Ted says that Bruce won't be showing up at the gym.

Dismissing his reaction for the moment (in part because of how it makes no sense at all since he can't possibly be interested in Bruce after everything that's happened in the past few days), Dick leaps for the chance to playfully needle his adoptive father.

"You sure you can afford that, Teddy?"

"I've been feeding you and Tom for years, Dick," Ted mutters with gruffness in his voice that is belied by the twinkle in his eyes. "You two haven't sent me to the poorhouse yet."

When Dick snorts and sticks his tongue out at him, Ted laughs and gives Dick a gentle push in the direction of the office door.

"Go bother Tom. He's been begging for a workout all day and my old body can't keep up as well as it used to."

Tiffany rolls her eyes.

"Keep talking like that and one of these days, someone's going to believe you're really that old." She loops her arm around one of Dick's and starts to tug him out of the open office door. "See you in a few hours for lunch!"

Ted's low laughter follows them all the way down the hallway to the gym's main room.

*

Between sparring and watching Tiffany flirt with Tom throughout their bouts, Dick's frustration with Batman's attitude and Bruce's... everything starts to fade by the time lunchtime approaches.

After a quick shower to sluice away the results of a hard morning of working out, Dick lets his rumbling stomach make up his mind for him. So what if Ted hasn't poked his head out of his office all day, Dick is sure that he won't mind Dick putting in his order a little early.

"I hope you're ready to go bankrupt," Dick calls out as he walks into Ted's office with a smile on his face. "I've been craving the seafood platter and we both know how much that costs."

At first, Dick doesn't notice that Ted isn't alone in his office. He's so busy being pleased about finally getting over the warring reactions of anger and desire that have been spiking all day that he doesn't notice that Bruce is sitting in the least comfortable chair off to the side of Ted's office until he clears his throat.

"Oh! Bruce -- I mean, Mr. Wayne," Dick says. "I thought you weren't coming today." Dick can hear a note of eagerness in his own voice and it makes his face feel warm with an annoying blush. While Bruce is interesting enough (and he certainly _has_ earned the title of "Most Handsome Bachelor" plaster across the covers of all those gossip magazines Tiffany reads), Dick getting so excited over a man that has managed to dig up his most distressing memories is... embarrassing to say the least. Dick really doesn't want to prove Tiffany right about his having a "type", but... all signs point to that option.

"I assume you're probably not here to apologize for the last thing you said to me?"

Bruce gives Dick a small smile and inclines his head in a brief nod that seems a little stiff.

"I'm sorry for that. And for everything else as well. I was... trying to figure out how to handle this," Bruce replies. "I don't talk about my parents' deaths and I shouldn't have brought yours up at all. I apologize for hurting you."

The apology seems sincere enough and then Bruce leans forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs as he looks up at Dick. "I'd like to make it up to you, Dick. Let me take you to lunch."

"Do you really think that'll help?" Dick rests his weight on the left side of the doorway. "A little bit of food and I'll forget that you brought up something that was none of your business?" A little more aggressive than usual, Dick scowls at Bruce. "I don't know if I'm hungry enough to do this --"

Bruce frowns.

"I understand," he mutters, broad shoulders slumping by an almost imperceptible amount. "After I finish talking to Ted, I'll leave you alone."

Bruce actually seems...ruffled. If Dick knew the guy better, he'd say that Bruce sounded _sad_.

 "Shit -- No. You don't have to do that. I'll accept your apology _and_ the free food."

A muscle near Bruce's mouth twitches, but when Bruce meets Dick's eyes, his own gaze is carefully bland.

"Does this mean that I'm forgiven?"

"Until the next time you mess up," Dick shrugs.

"Then it's a date," Bruce says with a small smile settling on his mouth. "We'll leave after I'm done here."

Before Dick can think of a good response to Bruce calling lunch with him a date (even as an offhand remark), Tiffany nearly knocks Dick down when she can't slow down on time on her way to Ted's office. Steadying himself with one arm flung out to brace himself on the nearest chair, Dick barely manages to keep himself standing.

"Well _someone's_ in a hurry," Dick says, managing a smile for his best friend once he's put himself to rights. "Are you that excited to get Chinese takeout?"

Tiffany shakes her head.

"About that," she says in a breathless murmur, reaching up to tug on one tightly coiled strand of hair that has escaped from the wide band holding her hair back out of her face. "Tom and I won't be eating with you and Ted. We have... plans."

There's something about the way that she says it (a little wiggle of her eyebrows and a smug note in in her rich voice) that makes Dick's inner meddler perk up even with Bruce sitting on the other side of the room.

"Don't tell me he --"

Tiffany shushes Dick loudly, but the brief interruption doesn't stop him from finishing his sentence.

"-- finally asked you out."

"Dick!"

Laughing softly at the way that Tiffany's forehead wrinkles as she frowns, Dick smiles at his best friend and reaches out to squeeze her hand. "I'm happy for you," he says, heedless of their audience. "I told you, Tiffany: he was going to make the first move sooner or later."

"Actually --"

"Tiffany asked _me_ out."

When Tom joins them in the already crowded office, Dick does his level best not to jump right out of his skin. Thanks to his training as Robin, few people can sneak up on him. However, Tom has always been able to get the best of Dick and he allows himself a small smirk when he meets Dick's gaze.

Tom looks at where Ted is still sitting behind his desk and he starts to worry his bottom lip the way he did when they were kids in high school expecting a good scolding for something.

"Is it cool if we leave early?" Tom asks. "I know I'm supposed to be working later, but there's a movie out and --"

Ted holds up one massive hand, stopping Tom before he can rattle off everything from the movie times to whatever subplots he's found out from the internet. Smiling slightly, Ted nods his head.

"It's about damn time," Ted says with a fond curve to his mouth. "I thought you two would never stop dancing around each other. Take the day off, son. There'll be plenty of work for you to do around here tomorrow."

Dick slaps his younger brother's back with the palm of one hand and grins.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he says, chuckling at the identical glares he gets from Tom and Tiffany as they start to head for the hallway that leads out of the office.

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jeans, Dick softens his smile as the urge to grab his younger brother and his best friend in a hug starts to make itself known. Neither Tiffany nor Tom would appreciate that sort of thing and besides, Dick wants them to leave the gym thinking about each other. Not about how much of a pain he can be.

"You sure you'll be okay with us ditching you, Dick?" Tiffany asks, pausing to let Tom go ahead of her. She's frowning while she talks, wide mouth turning down with more than a hint of worry. "Maybe we should have --"

Dick shakes his head.

"I'm fine," Dick insists. "Bruce won't let me eat by myself. Don't worry about me. Okay?"

Tiffany seems to notice Bruce for the first time and she utters an embarrassed-sounding squeak, brown eyes going wide when she notices the billionaire sitting stiffly near the far side of the room.

"Oh! Mr. Wayne, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you there, I --"

Rising to his feet, Bruce gifts Tiffany with a brilliant smile and holds out a hand for her to shake.

"You're one of Lucius' daughters," Bruce says as the sharp notes of his Gotham accent come through in his deep voice. "I'm not sure which one you are, but it's very nice to meet you."

"I'm Tiffany. Tam's the one currently interning with your PR department."

"Ah, Tiffany," Bruce says, his smile widening. "Your father has been keeping me updated on the status of your lab work. Your work with Dr. Xi has been exemplary and he has already spoken highly about your progress. On top of that, you have my biomedical department practically panting over your latest round of testing results on the metahuman genetic samples." 

"No way," Tiffany breathes. "You can't be serious. I must be dreaming or you're joking. This can't be real."

Dick is inclined to agree with her.

Shaking his head, Bruce proceeds to dispel Tiffany's worries.

"It's no joke," he says. "At this point, I'm half inclined to snatch you up for my company before Luthor can get close enough to try bringing you in for Cadmus Labs. You could do good things for WE's biomedical department."

"Oh my god." Tiffany says, repeating it a few times for good measure as she stares up at Bruce as though the man has honest to god _stars_ set around him. "Seriously?"

.

"I don't think he'd offer you something like this if he wasn't serious," Dick says in a low voice. Ignoring where he wants to have the same reaction as the woman beside him, he forces himself to stay calm

It's everything that Tiffany has wanted since starting on her thesis. Lex Luthor has been sniffing around the labs and has even taken Tiffany out on a few lunch meetings in order to pick her brain, but working for Wayne Enterprises would be a dream come true for Tiffany.

"You should say yes," Dick says.

Bruce glances back and forth between Tiffany and Dick. "You don't have to make up your mind now," he murmurs. "I don't want you to keep Tom waiting. If you're interested in working for my company after graduation, I'll certainly have a position available for you, but you don't have to decide anything now."

Tiffany jerks her head in a sharp nod.

"Th-thank you, Mr. Wayne."

"Please, call me Bruce."

Ted takes that as his cue to interject. Standing up from his desk, Ted brushes off the front of his faded blue t-shirt and then makes his way around one side.

"I need to talk to Bruce about something," he says. "Why don't you wait outside, Dick?"

Dick doesn't need to be told twice. He and Tiffany leave the office and pull the door in almost all the way behind them, leaving a thin gap between the door and the lock so that a small amount of sound filters through.

"Have fun on your date," Dick calls out as Tiffany heads out to where Tom has his bike idling just in front of the glass front doors. "I expect to hear everything when you get back."

With the hallway empty for a change, the furious whispering that comes from Ted's office is incredibly loud and Dick almost jumps. Dick can't hear the whole conversation, but he hears muffled bits like

" -- the hell are you doing, Bruce?" and "if you think I'm just going to let you hurt him --"

 Whatever Bruce's responses are to Ted's comments, Dick doesn't know. All he can hear is the anger in Ted's voice and the choppy way that those half-heard sentences are delivered.

Ted has met everyone that Dick's been friendly with before and never before has Dick heard him react like this. Bruce isn't even his friend. Not really. Not yet. And yet Ted's acting like he's got to protect Dick's virtue or something.

Bruce is good looking, sure, but Dick doesn't know if he can see himself dating someone who tried to adopt him and then brought up his dead parents over lunch. But it's not like this is really a date...

Why Ted is so angry escapes Dick, but he resolves to ask once he gets back.

Leaning against the wall opposite the cracked office door, Dick settles in for the long haul. Several minutes pass with Ted talking to Bruce in rising tones until it's almost loud enough for him to hear every single word.

"He's as good as my son, Bruce," Ted says in the seconds before the office door swings open to reveal Bruce's tall frame. "If you hurt him in any way, you'll have me to deal with."

The threat doesn't seem to affect Bruce at all. When Dick sees his face, the other man has a small smile on his face. He doesn't seem bothered by Ted's anger and his smile only widens when he notices Dick's expectant face.

"Are you ready to leave?" Bruce asks. "I promised Ted that I wouldn't make you late for work this time."

"Is this -- is this a good idea?" Dick asks a question of his own instead of answering Bruce's query, gaze flitting over to where Ted's office door remains closed. "Maybe we shouldn't go for lunch if Ted's so mad. It's just lunch, I mean -- We can always try again tomorrow."

Bruce's thin lips tighten with a frown.

"Have you eaten yet?"

Dick shakes his head.

"No."

"Then I'm taking you to lunch," Bruce says firmly, taking hold of Dick's left arm just above the bend of his elbow in a grip that's entirely _too_ familiar for the limited contact they've had so far. However, Bruce's hand is warm and strong as it curves around Dick's bicep. Dick can't bring himself to mind the intrusion into his personal space. 'Ted can finish lecturing me when I bring you back."

*

Instead of taking Dick to a fancy restaurant like he did earlier in the week, Bruce takes Dick to a small Irish pub that is within walking distance of Ted's gym.

Dick knows the place well. It's where he has celebrated every birthday for the past eight years and the restaurant's staff treats Dick like he's part of the family. After a round of friendly backslapping and jokes with the waiters that have been sneaking Dick sips of Guinness since he was fourteen, Dick leads Bruce to a booth set in a dark corner by the bar.

When Bruce sits down, Dick notices how the older man holds his body a little stiff. One side of his shirt dips down, revealing a dark bruise that peeks out from between the fine blue fabric of his button-up shirt.

"You're hurt," Dick blurts out, fingers twitching as though he wants to touch the bruise darkening one of Bruce's pale pectorals. "How --"

Bruce shakes his head, interrupting Dick mid-sentence.

"It's nothing," he says. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was going last night and I walked into my dresser." Touching his own fingers to the edge of the bruise darkening his skin, Bruce's lips curve up with a rueful smile. "You should see the bruises I get back in Gotham when I sleep in my office."

"Bruised shins?" Dick offers.

"And bruised forearms and thighs," Bruce says with a wider smile that makes Dick grin in response. "My butler despairs of patching me up after those nights."

As Dick opens his mouth to continue their easy conversation, one of the pub's waitresses -- an older blonde named Mona that has been flirting with Ted for the past four years -- comes up to them with a tray of appetizers and two dark glasses.

"Guinness?" Dick asks, reaching up to take one of the glasses off the tray as it lists to the side. Taking a sip, Dick is surprised to taste vanilla ice-cream and root beer and he licks his lips slowly, savoring the sweet treat.

Mona grins at Dick and ruffles Dick's hair with a callused hand.

"I don't think your dad would appreciate me letting you get drunk in the middle of the day," she says in a teasing tone. "Maybe when you're twenty-one, I'll consider making you a real float for your birthday."

Bruce settles back in his booth with a faint wince twisting at his mouth when he knocks against his bruised chest.

"Do _I_ get liquor?"

"Honey, you're Bruce Wayne," Mona says with a wide smile as she sets a glass down in front of Bruce. "You can get whatever you want. You don't look like a Guinness man though so if you want what Dick's got, just wave me over." Setting the plate of appetizers down with a clatter, Mona pops her gum and then gives both Dick and Bruce an expectant onceover. "Now what'll you have, boys?"

Bruce goes all out with his order. He orders enough for two people including an order of the pub's famous shepherd's pie and then tells Mona that, "he's saving some room for dessert" when she asks him if that's all in an awestruck murmur.

Dick orders the steak salad and when Mona leaves to input their orders, Bruce starts to laugh. The sound is barely loud enough for Dick to hear even as he sits across the table from Bruce, but it's a nice enough laugh that Dick feels warmth fill him for a second.

"Are you sure that's enough food for you?" Bruce's smile is sharp but teasing and Dick wriggles around, getting comfortable in his own seat in the booth as he watches Bruce's dark blue eyes crinkle up at the corners. The smile is a good look on him and it softens his almost actor-perfect features.

It goes the rest of the way to easing the worries still cluttering Dick's mind.

Dick gives Bruce a smile of his own and then starts to fiddle with his fork.

"Don't worry 'bout me," Dick retorts. "If I'm still hungry afterwards, I can steal some of your food. With how much you ordered, I'm sure you won't miss a thing."

Dick hooks one finger underneath the rim of their appetizer plate and pulls it over the table towards him so that he can grab a stuffed mushroom and pop it into his mouth.

"So tell me, Bruce: How'd a rich guy like you know about a little pub like this?" Dick asks after downing several more of the little mushrooms.

"This is where Ted would take me after he'd wipe the mats with my face," Bruce says, glancing around the pub with a fond look on his face. "After working out at the gym all day, Ted would bring me here in the afternoons. We'd sit right there at the counter and eat until we couldn't move without waddling."

"How old were you?" Dick asks.

Bruce's aquiline nose wrinkles as he thinks.

"Sixteen," he says after a long pause. "After my parents' deaths, I used to run away from the Gotham all the time. Right before I turned sixteen I took three buses to get to one of Ted's bouts and when it was over, he recognized me and grabbed me when I was trying to get an autograph."

Dick takes a sip of his float and spares a few moments to savor the sweetness on his tongue before the bitterness at his parents' death starts to come back in full force.

"That's almost like how my dad met Ted," Dick says, sharing something that only a handful of people in his world know. "He was running away from something -- he never told me what -- and he ran straight into an alley where Ted was knocking heads together for the JSA. He used to tell that story every time we did a show in New York." Dick feels his throat get tight at the memory and at how even that is hard to recall despite hearing it over and over for years.

"I'm sorry, Bruce," Dick says as he crumples a napkin up on one of his hands. Talking about dead parents always puts a damper on the mood. "We probably shouldn't talk about dead parents at the table. So far, that hasn't ended well for us..."

Reaching across the table, Bruce covers one of Dick's hands with one of his own. He squeezes Dick's hand and then settles back against the back of the booth so that Dick has some space.

"You don't owe me an apology, Dick," Bruce says in a low murmur. "I still miss my parents too. They've been dead for twenty years and I still can't look at pearls without wanting to throw a fit. Some things are hard to move past and the loss of your parents is one of them." The next smile that Bruce offers Dick is softer and it makes him seem _real_ and touchable instead of like a celebrity. "I have to admit, I am glad that you warmed up to me somewhat."

Dick can't stop himself from smiling right back at Bruce even though his smile feels a bit on the watery side.

"You're a good guy, Bruce," Dick says. "You're nothing like how I thought you'd be."

"And what was that?"

Dick lifts and drops his right shoulder in a half-hearted shrug without meeting Bruce's eyes.

"Creepy, I guess. I didn't think that you'd apologize to me either."

"Creepy?"

"My friend Raya told me you were trying to _adopt_ me when I was little," Dick says in a heated whisper in between sips of his root beer float. "You were a stranger and it was creepy so --"

"So you ran," Bruce says, easily finishing Dick's sentence. "The social workers were frantic for days, you know? They thought something bad had happened to you. I was worried."

Dick frowns. "Why on earth would _you_ be worried about me?"

"Before my butler took me in as his ward, I spent quite a bit of time in the Gotham City foster system," Bruce confesses in a hushed tone of voice, leaning over the table so that he doesn't need to raise his voice. "I saw when Batman brought their killer forward and your face -- You looked so scared. I was just trying to help keep you out of the system and I couldn't -- I couldn't think of any other way to help."

Dick taps the top of the table with two fingers.

"You were what? Barely twenty? At the most, you couldn't have been more than twenty three, right?"

When Bruce nods, Dick laughs.

"That's why I thought you were creepy. I was twelve and I didn't know you at all, but when Raya told me that you were asking about me and making nice with the social worker, I just knew I had to get away before I wound up stuck in a group home."

"I probably should have introduced myself first..." Bruce sighs.

Laughing softly, Dick spares Bruce a tiny smile. "Probably," he agrees. "But in all honesty, I'm happy things turned out the way they did. If I hadn't run away, I doubt I'd have the life I do now."

When Dick pauses to take a sip of his drink and eat a handful of appetizers, Bruce does the same and they sit in silence for several seconds until Bruce's eyes widen and his nose wrinkles with distaste.

"I just had a thought," Bruce says slowly.

"Hm?"

"If I had managed to adopt you all those years ago, you would be my son."

Dick nearly chokes on his drink.

"I -- I didn't think about that," he blurts out. "I wish I hadn't thought of that. I'm on a lunch date with a man that could have been my _father_." Dick makes a face at the thought. "Ew."

"A date?" Bruce says.

"Ted wouldn't be trying to protect my honor if he didn't think it needed protecting," Dick points out. "I mean -- I _could_ be reading too much into it, but I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a date." Pausing to take in the slightly stunned look on Bruce's face, Dick quickly starts to backpedal. "Or we're just out as friends -- Please tell me that I'm not wrong or reading too much into this."

It takes a second for Bruce to respond.

"No," Bruce murmurs. "You're not wrong. If I hadn't messed up on Tuesday, I would've asked you out after lunch."

"I -- I don't know if I would've said yes," Dick admits almost too softly for Bruce to hear. "Not at first because of the whole... adoption, but you've proven me wrong about a lot of things today. When Ted said you weren't coming by today, I actually felt bad."

Frowning down at his float, Dick struggles to say something that makes sense.

"But this is just -- There's no point to this. You're leaving soon and I don't have a good reason to go back to Gotham."

Bruce's response leaves Dick stunned.

"I could be your reason," he says. While the words are something straight out of a cheesy romance novel, the intensity of Bruce's gaze is something else. "I'd like to get to know you, Dick. We could try."

Dick can't remember the last time he had a serious relationship. Koriand'r was years ago and what he and Roy Harper have is as far from serious as they can get. The same goes for Huntress, who would probably laugh herself to death at the thought of actually dating Dick.

Maybe Bruce will be good for Dick. At the very least, even if things don't work out between them, Dick finally has something to distract him from the grim specter of Batman's shadowy form hanging over him along with his personal failings.

"I'd like that too," Dick says with a smile on his face. "Why don't we go on an actual date some other time when Ted isn't expecting me back to do the books for him?" Shoving a hand into one of his pockets, Dick pulls out his phone and hands it to Bruce. "Let's exchange numbers."

Bruce types his number into Dick's phone, saving before handing the phone back to Dick who immediately sends him a text in response. As his phone buzzes in his breast pocket, Bruce focuses on Dick.

"Are you free tonight?"

Dick wants to say yes. In fact, he even opens his mouth to say so before he remembers that he can't shirk patrol for a date. Not when the person he's trying to date doesn't know about his night job.

"I'm sorry, Bruce," Dick says with a put-upon sigh leaving his mouth. "But I have work tonight. I don't know if I'll be able to finish up in time."

Bruce nods to show his understanding.

"Tomorrow then," he says. "I'll pick you up after I finish working. Just tell me where and when."

At that moment, Mona returns to their booth and starts setting out plates.

"How are you boys doing? Is everything good?"

Bruce and Dick share a meaningful look over the table and when Dick replies to Mona, he does so while feeling as though he's answering for both of them.

"Everything's perfect. Thanks."

*

Lunch is fun and before long, Dick almost starts to regret putting patrol first because of how much he wants to spend time with Bruce.

Lunch with Bruce isn't as animated as lunch with Tiffany or Kory can be, but Bruce is interesting and witty, quick to respond to Dick's jokes with a few of his own.  His good looks certainly don't hurt matters either and Dick actually finds himself getting ready to take Bruce up on the offer of a date that night. Patrol be damned.

Dick's phone buzzes over the top of the table and when Ted's name shows up on the screen alongside a text notification, he curses under his breath.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Dick says, sighing softly. He eases out of the booth and then, on impulse born out of relationships with people who made being bold a science, Dick leans over and kisses Bruce square on the mouth.

As far as first kisses go, theirs is chaste. Dick pulls back from Bruce and smiles at the gob smacked look on the other man's face.

"Call me," Dick says over his shoulder as he looks back at where Bruce is still sitting and staring at him. "I'll keep my phone on just for you."

Dick hadn't expected to wind up tentatively dating Bruce. Hell, he hadn't been expecting the apology either. But he has to admit that he likes the turn that his day has taken.

Now if only patrol could go this smoothly.


	5. Chapter 5

Dick thinks about kissing Bruce for the rest of the day.

It's not love at first (or even second) sight -- Bruce is too infuriating for that even though Dick is over his grudge -- but it certainly is _something_.

Dick is lost so deep in thought that he barely even notices how the streets of his regular territory are all but _empty_ of criminals. It feels as though all of crime has taken a break for the night. Sure, Dick is sure that _somewhere_ out there, criminals are making it hard for the JSA to do their own patrols, but where Dick is within a stone's throw of the headquarters, the worst crime that Dick sees is jaywalking and that's so not his problem.

That's not to say that Dick gets to moon over Bruce instead of focusing on his mission. Crime may be low with Gotham's grim spectre of justice hanging around, but there are still people to save and lives to fix.

Car accidents.

Animal attacks.

The rare cat stuck in a tree at quarter after nine at night.

By the time that Dick returns a yowling black and white cat to a little kid screaming "Ebby! Ebby!" at the top of their little lungs, he's a sweaty mess and that's _without_ doing anything remotely as violent as his usual patrol calls for.

Making his way to the top of one of the buildings with the best vantage points of his section of the city, Dick drops down to sit on the crumbling gravel with his grappling hook resting across his thighs and prepares to relax a little before he flings himself back into the fray. Stretching out his tense muscles and cracking his neck and knuckles in quick succession, Dick is all set to spend a good ten minutes reliving lunch with Bruce and that _kiss_ \--

And then he hears the wail of sirens in the distance and a hint of bitter smoke reaches his nostrils.

"Oh come _on_ ," Dick breathes, letting exasperation color his voice. Looking up at the cloudy sky above his head, Dick frowns and directs his next words up at the moon. "I couldn't even get ten minutes? Seriously?"

Getting back to his feet before the universe decides to smile on him in other, _wetter_ ways; Dick dusts off the back of his costume and turns in a tight circle atop the roof until he notices the thick plumes of dark smoke rising off of a high rise in the distance. The fire is on the edge of where Dick's patrol routes end and Tom's route begins.

Dick _could_ just sit back down and wait for someone else to put out the fire. He could. He even thinks about it for several long moments before shaking his head hard to clear it of the thought.

"No, I can't do that," Dick tells himself in a serious voice. "I can relax when everyone's safe and the fire's out." _Even if that takes all night_.

*

[ ](http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/MissSynph/media/bb/ScreenHunter_05Oct241726.jpg.html)

* 

By the time that Dick gets to the high rise apartments, most of the residents are crowded just out of range of the leaping flames. The night is bright with orange-red flames licking up the side of the building despite the firefighter's best efforts and smoke hovers heavily in the muggy air around them

Dick hits the ground beside one of the firefighters that he recognizes as Captain Mark Espinosa, the man that comes by Ted's gym every two months or so just to catch up with him (under the guise of doing inspections of course). Dick makes sure that his hair is held back from his face properly and then offers the firefighter a sharp nod in greeting.

"Is everyone out?" Dick asks.

Espinosa shakes his head.

"Not yet," he says with a grim twist to his mouth. "One of the neighbors says that there's an elderly couple on the fourth floor who needs help taking the stairs. With the elevator out, the Thompsons haven't been able to come down on their own and they didn't answer the door when anyone called for them as they were evacuating."

Dick looks up at the high rise and at the billowing smoke pouring out of half-opened windows.

"Do you know which apartment they're in?" Dick asks, already preparing his grappling hook. "I'll go in and get them both out before this fire gets worse."

Espinosa looks Dick over from head to toe.

"No offense, Robin," he says in that tone that says that Dick will be lucky if what comes out of his mouth next isn't something that borders on offensive. "But you don't look like you could carry a heavy bag of groceries, much less two adults. Why don't you leave this for the JSA?"

Narrowing his eyes behind the opaque lenses of his domino mask, Dick bites back the initial urge to say something nasty. He puts his hands on his hips and straightens his spine slightly so that he's eye to eye with the firefighter in front of him.

"If we wait for the JSA to notice, they'll die. Do you want that on your conscience? I know I don't." Dick glances back at the apartment high rise. "Now tell me where they are because I _can_ help."

Quickly, Espinosa stammers out the elderly couple's apartment number and points at the corresponding window. Thankfully, it's one of the few that isn't obscured by smoke or flames.

"That should put you right in their living room."

Dick dips his head in a nod, aims his grappling hook, and fires at the expanse of stone several feet above the window that he's supposed to be entering through.

Launching himself into the air, Dick directs his body in such a way that he hits the barely open window feet first, the booted soles of his feet sending the window bowing inward before the warped metal and glass gives way and he falls into the apartment.

Once inside, Dick realizes why there was no smoke coming out of the window of the apartment.

It's all indoors.

Dick pulls a small, collapsible rebreather out of his gloves and slaps it over his mouth, waiting until the mask beeps several seconds later before daring to take in a breath of air.

"Mr. Thompson! Mrs. Thompson," Dick calls out, edging around chintzy furniture and all sorts of knickknacks to a hallway that has a close door at the end. Dick touches his gloved fingers to the doorknob and when the built in temperature sensors give him the all clear, he turns the knob and steps inside. The bedroom is dark and smoky to where Dick has to flick on his night vision goggles in order to see anything. When he sees the two figures lying underneath the blankets on the bed, Dick feels his heart stop in his chest.

Rushing over to the bed near the left side where an elderly woman with curlers in her fluffy white hair seems to merely be asleep, Dick quickly peels off one glove and feels for a pulse, pressing two fingers into the fragile-looking skin at the old woman's wrist as the smell of smoke deepens. When he finds one, he sighs despite its weakness and does the same to her husband with similar results.

The relief that Dick feels at that is palpable.

"I can't bring you both out at the same time," Dick says, glancing from husband to wife with a mournful note in his voice. Dick may be stronger than the average Joe off the street, but carrying several dozen pounds of dead weight in the form of an unconscious elderly woman just about reaches his limit.

Dick doesn't want to choose.

He wishes he didn't have to, but he pushes the blankets back except for one, winding it around the woman's smaller body until she's covered up from head to toe.

"I'll come back," Dick says to her husband even though the little elderly man can't hear him. "I promise."

When Dick straightens up starts to ease the older woman into his arms, he feels a strong hand clamp down on his right shoulder.

"I'll get the husband," he hears in a growling tone that's more than familiar by now. "Take her now. The building's about to go up in flames." Sans cape, Batman looks even larger than usual. He walks around to the far side of the bed and repeats Dick's actions, only using his cape instead of a sheet to cover the elderly man.

When Dick stands there gaping, Batman growls at him.

"Go down the stairs," Batman shouts, as the sound of creaking wood gets louder and the temperature in the apartment increases. "I've cleared them for you and I'll be right behind you."

Dick lifts the elderly woman into his arms and bolts, moving as fast as he can and trusting that Batman will be alright. He takes the stares as quickly as he dares, taking them two at a time as he holds Mrs. Thompson tightly and dodges errant bits of glowing embers that fall towards them.

Outside, the scene is chaos. Dick doesn't remember much of it.

There's so much noise; so much brightness and shouting and people getting in his way as he tries to get back to the ambulances.

By the time Dick hands Mrs. Thompson off to an EMT standing in front of an ambulance with a stretcher at the ready, Batman has already done the same with her husband and disappeared.

Smelling of smoke and with part of his suit and ponytail smoldering from a lick of fire that came far too close, Dick feels like a wreck.

His throat aches and his mouth tastes like ash from where his rebreather had slipped out of his mouth at one point. He finds his way to a rooftop that overlooks the burning building and slumps down against the brick enclosure housing the air-conditioning unit, pushing out his breath in a sigh.

Dick lets his head drop back against the wall behind him, sighing at dull throb of pain that lances through his skull. He's so _tired_ but he's happy on top of that. Happy that he could help. Happy that the couple is safe for now. Happy that Batman was there to help keep a bad situation from getting any worse.

A human-shaped shadow obscures the silvery light reflected by the moon. Dick doesn't look up.

"If you're going to lecture me about proper fire safety, you can wait until tomorrow," Dick mutters when his gaze falls on the soot-covered tops of Batman's boots. "I've had a bad night."

"I noticed," Batman says in a droll tone. He doesn't _quite_ join Dick in sitting on the ground, but he does drop to his knees in front of him. Batman reaches into one of the pockets on his ridiculously bright yellow belt and pulls out what looks like a wet-wipe with a pale gray bat emblazoned across the front of it. "Take this. It's for your face."

When Dick takes the bit of cloth from Batman, he realizes how badly his hands are shaking.

"I thought I wouldn't be able to save them," Dick finds himself confessing. "If you weren't there --"

"I know," Batman says. The almost kindly tone that his deep voice dips into seems far at odds with the hulking beast that had nearly made a mess of Dick on the rooftop only one night before, but Dick decides that he prefers it by far. "I'm glad I got there in time to help."

Dick cracks a wan smile.

"I know _I_ am," he says, still staring at Batman's feet instead of at his face. "I suppose I should go call this in to the JSA, huh?" Twitching like he's getting ready to get up, Dick is surprised to feel a big hand close across his arm.

"I'll take care of it," Batman says. "Later."

"Later?" Dick repeats Batman's last word as a question. "Why later?"

"I want to talk to you," Batman says. "I'd like to... apologize. I'll handle the JSA for you tonight if you need me to. It's the least that I can do after last night."

Dick barely resists his urge to snort with laughter.

"You're damn right about that one," he mutters. "I have a bone to pick with you about that damn tracker so don't think I've forgotten."

Batman moves back so that he's not taking up all of Dick's space, crouching down just outside of Dick's range.

"I apologize for that,"

"I'm not letting you off _that_ easily," Dick says with a biting note in his voice. What is it about big lugs thinking that he'll be that easy about accepting apologies? "How would you like it if I put a tracker on your cape? I'll bet that you'd hate it if I tried to figure out _your_ secret identity." Dick pauses to suck in a much needed breath of air and then kisses his teeth in an expression of utmost annoyance. "Seriously, what made you decide to treat me like a normal hero?"

Batman frowns at Dick, a faint downturn at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth that makes Dick feel as though _he's_ the bad guy in all of this. With the unending black and gray of his suit and the fact that Dick _knows_ Batman's reputation and it's _not_ as a chump that gets his feelings hurt when someone yells at him, the expression looks out of place on his face.

The words that Batman says next are equally as unexpected, as is the casual way that Batman moves into kneeling position across from Dick as though he sits around on rooftops with people he doesn't like all the time.

"After we spoke last night, I wound up talking to a mutual friend of ours who set me straight about you."

Batman makes the confession in a low, almost chagrined tone, and despite the fact that the lenses of his cowl are still up and projecting a blinding, bland white instead of whatever color his eyes are, Dick can tell that Batman might be embarrassed.

"He wouldn't tell me anything about your identity, but he chewed me out about invading your privacy and reminded me... Well, he reminded me that no one comes to this business as a perfect hero. I don't agree with your methods, but -- Maybe I was a little quick to judge you without knowing the full story behind what happened in Galonia."

Pausing for a moment as if to collect himself, Batman leans forward and touches one massive, gloved hand to side of Dick's leg for a single second before pulling back and making himself seem even more unapproachable.

"I was wrong about you, Robin."

"Everyone makes mistakes," Dick says, feeling his own mouth twist with a wry smile as he thinks back briefly to his own mistakes. "I'm glad you figured that you _before_ you decided to tie me to a lamp post like you do with some of those guys in Gotham."

Almost tempted into smiling at the way that Batman's nigh-unreadable face softens with something that _has_ to be amusement, Dick covers the gesture up with a jaw-cracking yawn that isn't entirely for show. He reaches with his arms stretching up above his head and stretches, leaning back until his joints crack and he feels a familiar heaviness take hold in his body.

"I should go back to patrolling," Dick says and this time, when he rises to his feet, Batman doesn't stop him. In fact, the other vigilante rises to his feet as well and steps back so that Dick has _real_ space and not just the idea of it. "I'm glad that you had a change of heart or whatever, but I can't spend my time here when I need to be out there helping people."

There's this tiny and annoying part of Dick's brain that speaks up at that and Dick forces himself to ignore the fact that, despite how tiring it is to find out that two people in one day have turned out to secretly be decent people, Dick is actually fine with sitting on a rooftop with Batman.

The strangeness of that thought makes up Dick's mind for him and he dusts himself off with rough movements of his hands, getting as much soot and ash off of his suit as he can. His hair's a lost cause and Dick makes a disgusted face at the thought of having to wash his hair extra well when he gets back to his safe house in the middle of the night.

Dick is so busy trying to catalogue the damage to his suit and hair that he honestly forgets that Batman is even on the roof with him until the other vigilante clears his throat.

Dick doesn't jump. HIs shoulders tense up for a moment before he forces himself to relax.

"Yes?"

"Wildcat just sent me a message for you over the comms," Batman says. "He'll finish patrolling your section for you. Your orders are take the rest of the night off."

Whining is immature. That doesn't mean that the first thing Dick wants to do isn't to launch into a whine worthy of Tiffany's youngest sister. Frowning, Dick crosses his arms over his chest and glares at Batman.

"What? I wasn't even hurt tonight --"

Dick ends his sentence abruptly and turns around, putting his back to Batman as he busies himself with recalibrating his grappling hook.

"Tell him thanks for me," Dick says. "Try not to do anything that'll piss the JSA off since I doubt anyone's going to tell _you_ to go home."

Dick knows that he's moments away from acting like a child, but he can't help feeling as though he should act the way he's being treated. Aside from a weary ache in his limbs and the way his throat itches when he talks, Dick is _fine_. He's fine and should be allowed to patrol without Ted pulling rank on him.

But it's not like he can say that to Batman.

When Dick turns back, Batman is still standing there, watching him with an unreadable look on his face. There's something about the way that Batman looks, standing there and staring at him as though he's afraid to look away, that makes Dick's face warm with a blush that (hopefully) can't be seen in the dark.

Dick waves goodbye and then throws himself off the top of the building, shooting the hook at the last possible minute just for the thrill of knocking the air right out of his lungs. The adrenaline rushing through Dick's body clears his head and makes him grin wildly as thoughts of Batman's disapproving face are replaced with thoughts of Bruce Wayne's smiling one.

It's been a long night, but Dick still has enough energy to _want_.

Maybe Bruce will still be awake by the time that Dick finishes washing his hair.

*

When Dick _does_ call Bruce after scrubbing all of the soot and smoke out of his hair, the other man sounds distracted when he finally answers the phone.

"Wayne here," Bruce says in a brusque tone. Dick can hear shouting in the background of the call as well as something that he'd swear was gunfire if Bruce was anyone else. "Hello?"

Dick nearly drops the phone.

"Oh! Bruce, it's me -- Dick." Which is something Bruce probably knows because what phone doesn't have caller ID these days... Dick doesn't let that spit-second of embarrassment that he feels at that thought derail him. "Are you busy? I was wondering if you still wanted to -- go on that date, you know?"

He sounds like he's twelve. He _feels_ like he's sixteen again and struggling to speak over the pulse of hormones and nerves fighting a war in his throat.

"Now?" There's surprise in Bruce's voice. "Didn't you have work?"

Dick shrugs. Then, remembering that Bruce can't _see_ him, manages to answer out loud.

"I got out early," he says, glancing up at flickering red digits on the digital clock mounted on the far wall of his safe house's main room. "If you're busy, I can --"

"It's fine," Bruce says. "I'm not exactly dressed for a night on the town, but if you don't mind staying in, we could have dinner at my hotel." Bruce utters a soft and clearly worried noise on his end of the phone. "Or is that too presumptuous of me? Inviting you over like that."

Laughing quietly about the strangeness of it all (of having a date with Bruce Wayne of all people and having the older man be just as nervous as he is), Dick pushes one hand through his still-damp hair and then grins. He's... happy. This has been the best day he's had in a long time. Not only did he get two sincere apologies in one day, but he has a real date -- the first in a ridiculously _long_ time.

"That sounds like a plan," Dick says, beaming up at the cracked plaster ceiling over his head.

Dick has a _date_. Sure, it's with someone he was barely civil to twelve hours before, but it's an honest to god _date_ and it's not as though Dick gets enough of those these days. Besides, between Tiffany's talk and having lunch with Bruce earlier, Dick is mostly over it.

"Text me your address and I'll be there in a half hour with beer."

Bruce utters a low, pleased sound on the other end of the line. That sound goes straight to Dick's gut and he bites back a groan that wants to escape, squeezing his eyes shut tight enough that it stings. 

"I'll see you then," Bruce murmurs.

"Y-yeah," Dick breathes. "Later."

*

Dick brings a little more than beer with him to Bruce's hotel room.

When Bruce lets him in, Dick shoves a six pack of the fanciest beer he could find at the other man and holds up a huge canvas bag that has the logo for one of the best Thai places in the neighborhood plastered on the front of it.

"I asked Ted what you liked and he gave me quite a list." Grinning in spite of the mild pain from where the heavy bag digs into his palm, Dick holds up the bag in offering and watches with no small amount of pleasure as Bruce smiles back at him. "I have three different kinds of curry with sticky rice to go with them, two salads, coconut cake, and two orders of fried bananas. I think that should be enough to fill you up."

Bruce nods and then gestures for Dick to follow him as he walks down a hallway that might be bigger than Dick's room back home.

"We'll eat in the den," Bruce says over his shoulder. "You don't mind do you?"

"Your hotel room has a den," Dick repeats as he stumbles after Bruce. "A den? Why --"

When Bruce's answering shrug causes the dark blue material of his sweater to move with him, Dick's mouth goes dry immediately. He zeroes in on Bruce's muscles, eyeing the other man as though Bruce is a meal and Dick hasn't eaten in days.

Dick is so intent on memorizing Bruce's musculature, that he doesn't notice that they've arrived at the den until he walks right into Bruce's back. Walking into a wall would probably be less painful. But a wall wouldn't smell like smoke and expensive cologne that probably costs more than what Dick pays for his half of the rent every month. And a wall definitely wouldn't turn around to make sure that Dick was alright.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Bruce isn't exactly touchy, Dick gets that much, but he raises one hand like he's about to cup Dick's face with his free hand and turn his head for a better view. Dick finds himself wanting (something -- _anything_ ) and he has to catch himself before he says something that he'll regret.

Rocking back on his heels, Dick tries to muster up a smile for Bruce that doesn't scream his ulterior motives to the world. He rubs his nose, smiles and says, "Just my pride," as though the tip of his noise isn't smarting something fierce.

"It's nothing. I'm fine." And that's... most of the truth if not all of it.

"That's good," Bruce says, flashing his pearly whites in a brief smile that makes Dick feel as though he should be swooning on principle. "You can put the food down over on this table."

If the hallway _might_ be bigger than Dick's bedroom, then the den could swallow their whole apartment for breakfast.

With three sides lined by huge leather couches that could seat half a dozen on each one easily, the room looks like it belongs as a set in a movie, not as a room in someone's hotel suite. In addition to the couches and a flat screen television that looks like a mirror, the room also has a massive glass coffee table as a centerpiece and Bruce sets the beers down on it without grabbing anything to cover the top of the table before he drops down to his knees on the carpet beside him.

"Aren't you worried that we'll make a mess?" Dick asks, following in Bruce's lead and getting down on his knees on the carpet. He spreads out the food as he talks though, setting warm aluminum containers of curry and rice on the table before dropping paper plates and two good fistfuls of napkins in the center of the table.

"Not really," Bruce says, already pulling a container of Kaeng phet curry toward him. "Rich people _can_ clean up after themselves you know..." Bruce spoons a healthy portion of rice and spicy curry onto his plate and then shifts so that he can lean back against the couch behind him.

"Thanks for bringing food," Bruce says with a smile that is fast becoming Dick's favorite thing to see.

Dick shrugs and then ducks his head, hoping that Bruce can't see the faint flush to his cheeks.

"Hey, it's a date isn't it? You paid for lunch so it's only right that I paid for this." Preparing a plate for himself takes Dick no time at all and when he glances at the glaringly empty spot next to Bruce that would have Dick sitting thigh to thigh with the other man --

Well.

Of _course_ Dick is going with the obvious option here. Dick sits closer to Bruce, smiling to himself as the other man moves in at an amount that would be next to impossible to register if all of Dick's senses weren't at full alert and screaming at him to put his food down and do _something_ about Bruce.

"I'm happy you weren't busy tonight," Dick admits in between mouthfuls of mild Phanaeng curry and rice that threatens to stick to the roof of his mouth. Dick knocks his shoulder against Bruce's own in the type of companionable gesture that one only makes with full (and dirty) hands. "This is... nice."

Bruce's dark eyes crinkle up at the corners.

"It is," he agrees.

*

From eating, they move to... necking on the couch with Dick's button-up shirt half undone and the collar of Bruce's sweater stretched all out of shape.

They're moving fast -- faster than they probably should --, but it's been a long time since Dick has been with anyone and Bruce is supposed to be leaving soon besides. If nothing else comes of this, at least Dick will have bragging rights on lock for a month with Tiffany.

It's as close to a cliché as Dick gets. He's a broke college student by day and a broke vigilante by night. Bruce is... worth billions and he could have anyone in the world. Yet here they are, curled around each other on a couch the size of a small island and kissing like there's nothing else in the world that's half as important as what they're doing now.

Dick is half expecting a camera crew to walk in and tell him that this is all a huge joke or a dream or _something_ \-- That Bruce isn't really sprawled out underneath him on the couch with his thin lips parted and red from kissing.

It can't really be real; Dick finds his brain pointing out the thought during the most inopportune moment. Guys like Bruce don't usually go for guys like him

Dick pulls away from Bruce's mouth with a low noise that sounds dirty to his ears. Sitting up in Bruce's lap so that he's not draped all over the other man's much bigger body, Dick reaches up to brush his fingers over the scratchy stubble that darkens Bruce's cheeks.

"I'm still not sure how I'm _not_ dreaming this," Dick murmurs as he stares at Bruce's mouth -- the same mouth that he's been kissing for the better part of the past half hour. "I think I'm still expecting to wake up in my apartment by myself." Dick leans in and presses a slow but sloppy kiss to Bruce's mouth that leaves them both panting at its conclusion.

It takes a while for Bruce to collect himself, but then he gets one hand on Dick's hip and starts this thumb to tracing abstract patterns over Dick's skin where his shirt rides up too far to be a real boundary worth crossing and _Dick_ is the one squirming and trying not to say something ridiculous.

"I could pinch you," Bruce offers, smiling with a wicked glint in his eyes. He eases one big hand back until he's cupping Dick's ass and then, as he holds Dick's gaze, he pinches him without waiting for Dick to respond to him.

Okay. So.

He's definitely not dreaming.

The faint pain radiating from his backside attests to that well enough.

"I'll get you back for that," Dick warns.

Bruce's low murmur of "I'm looking forward to it," sends a thrill up Dick's spine and he leans in to nuzzle a series of nipping kisses up along the column of Bruce's strong nip. As he leaves his own mark on Bruce's pale skin, Dick registers the heavy scent of smoke and he pulls back, frowning mildly at Bruce.

"I didn't know that you smoked," Dick says absently, sliding his fingers underneath the hem of Bruce's shirt so that he can get his hands on bare skin for a change. When Dick pushes up the sweater, he's expecting to see the sort of abs that only exist in magazine spreads. Instead, he gets --

Bruises.

Lots of bruises covering Bruce's pale skin.

"You're hurt," Dick hisses, staring at Bruce's abdomen as though in shock. "You're hurt and you let me _sit_ on you. Wh-what happened?" The bruises are everywhere, dappling Bruce's chest and stomach with purple and green marks the size of apples in some spots and quarters in others. Either way, there are way too many marks on Bruce's big body to be from an accident.

Bruce is less than forthcoming.

"It's nothing,” Bruce says, pushing Dick's hands away in order to get his shirt back down.

"It's not _nothing_ ," Dick huffs. "It looks like someone beat the hell out of you. What happened?" Bruce shuts him down again, but Dick has persistence down to a science. If he wants to know something, well -- he'll find nothing _but_ answers. Returning his attention to Bruce's chest, Dick yanks up his sweater and splays his hands out across Bruce's skin.

"Some of these marks look real bad," Dick murmurs, leaning in close so that he can get a better look at a series of finger-shaped marks low on Bruce's chest. They look like the result of a nerve strike or two and when Dick touches his fingers to the ruddy marks just underneath Bruce's sternum, he notices how similar in size the marks are to his fingers.

Suddenly, it hits Dick -- a feeling of suspicion that only seems to strengthen as Dick's mind races to put the pieces together.

The smell of smoke lingering on Bruce's skin and hair.

The bruises.

Hell, Bruce's very presence in Manhattan is suspicious. As far as Dick knows, there's no reason for Bruce to be out of Gotham.

Dick doubts that Bruce is running around starting fires for fun and he's definitely not a low-level minion or a super villain, not with his background. That just leaves one glaring option. At first, Dick thinks that he's just trying to make Bruce into someone he's thought of and held as a fantasy figure in his head. Bruce is a good guy, despite the mild creep factor in his trying to adopt Dick, and in person, his smiles are _nothing_ like the ones he gives for publicity shots.

"You're Batman," Dick blurts out. "You have to be --"

"Excuse me?" Bruce's interruption comes along with an almost painful press of Bruce's big fingers into Dick's hips as Bruce stares at him.

Dick doesn't let the disbelief in Bruce's voice cow him and he gestures at the marks on his chest.

"I recognize the bruises. By your solar plexus? I'm the one that gave them to you."

Bruce frowns and his thick eyebrows draw down in a scowl. But he doesn't deny Dick's claims.

"But that would make you --"

"Robin," Dick says, finishing Bruce's sentence for him. "I know."

"Does Ted know about you?"

Dick nods.

"Does he know about _you_?" And then Dick pauses, blinks several times in quick succession and then jabs his index finger right in Bruce's face, narrowly missing hitting hip in the nose. "That's why you apologized to me on the roof. Ted lectured you. I _knew_ it!"

"You don't need to sound so pleased with yourself," Bruce murmurs, glaring up at Dick in a way that seems a far cry from the man that had been kissing Dick so passionately mere minutes before. His hands flex against Dick's hips, drawing attention to the way that he still hasn't let go of Dick's body.

"I'm not -- I just -- " Dick huffs out a sigh and reaches up to rub at his forehead. "This isn't what I was expecting okay? But I thought it was strange that Batman would apologize to me on his-own. Knowing that he's you just -- makes sense."

It's one of the few things that does make sense right now and that's including Dick's expectations.

Dick is expecting... a lot.

From Bruce pushing him away to kicking his ass, Dick's treacherous mind does a great job of coming up with scenarios that are beyond terrifying to him. Still sitting astride Bruce's lap, Dick tries to find something that he can say to diffuse the situation.

"You know, I've had a crush on you since I was little," Dick blurts out the first thing that comes to mind and immediately regrets it. "As Batman, I mean. After Superman, you were my favorite cape out there."

Everyone likes Superman. (Except for Lex Luthor of course, but the opinion of a super-villain hardly counts). Liking Batman is an exercise in being constantly frustrated with how little information exists on the man. But now, Dick is actually sitting in his lap. In _Bruce Wayne's lap_ and the man happens to be his idol.

Dick has doesn't think he's felt dread and desire simultaneously before, but from the way that his stomach won't stop feeling like it's flip flopping and dropping inside of him -- he gets the picture and the desire for a repeat of that uncomfortable mix of emotions is definitely not on the table.

"On a scale from one to ten, how pissed are that I know your secret identity?" Dick asks in a low voice. "I can go if you want. I won't tell anyone, you know?" But maybe Bruce doesn't know. It's been less than a week (less than a day, really) and while Bruce knows how Dick likes to be kissed, he doesn't know how Dick thinks. He doesn't know that Dick can be trusted.

And _that_ could be a problem.

Dick shifts in preparation to wriggle off of Bruce's lap, but then the other man's fingers press into his skin.

"Stay," Bruce says and it's an order if Dick has ever heard one. "We should -- talk." The pinched expression that settles on Bruce's face shows just how much Bruce likes _that_ idea even if it is his to start with.

"You're taking this awfully well," Dick points out. "I thought you'd have flipped already."

"You're Ted's son," Bruce says, shaking his head. "If I hurt you, he'd destroy me."

Dick laughs until he snorts and that sets him off again. When he finishes laughing, Dick makes a show out of wiping at the corners of his eyes.

"At least it's not because you think I'm hot," he says, making a joke out of it.

Once again, Bruce leaves Dick's expectations shattered and scattered. He arches one dark brow as he looks up at Dick.

"I thought that was a given."

*

Secret identity reveals _do_ ruin the mood, but Dick doesn't mind _too_ much. Returning to the carpet and sharing dessert is almost as good as kissing and there's intimacy added by the fact that Bruce is actually talking to him. Really talking to him and asking questions as opposed to grunting out monosyllabic responses every time Dick asks him a question.

After emptying his first beer of the night, Dick sets the bottle down on top of the table with a clink and clatter of glass against glass. Turning to look at where Bruce is picking at a slice of cake, Dick asks what may be the one question he's wanted to know since he was a kid.

"Why did you become a superhero?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Bruce retorts.

Dick shrugs.

"You, mainly," he admits. "Sure, when I was little I wanted to be like my parents and fight the good fight, but you're the main reason I dress up like this now and fling myself into danger every night."

Bruce snorts into his cake.

"Should I feel honored?"

"Yeah," Dick says, reaching out and swatting Bruce's leg. "You should. You made me want to help people so they wouldn't have to go through what I did. I guess -- that's why you wanted to be a hero isn't it?" Dick pulls his legs up close to his chest so that he can rest his chin on his knees. "But the JSA does everything around here. The only reason I have any place to patrol on my own is because Ted keeps speaking up for me."

Bruce rests his plate down.

"Gotham is only a few hours away," Bruce says. "If you ever want to... branch out, just say the word." Bruce pauses and then blinks as though he's surprised himself with his own words, but he doesn't take them back. "I'd like to see you some more."

Dick blinks at Bruce.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asks. "Do you really want me running around your city with you?"

"It would make keeping an eye on you easier," Bruce admits.

Dick isn't fooled by the Bruce's dry delivery.

"And it'd make a relationship easier too -- I mean, if you still want to try." Dick hates the hopeful note in his voice because that never ends well for him. 

"I'm terrible at relationships," Bruce says a second later.

"Don't worry," Dick says, grinning to take the edge off his words. "If you break my heart, Tiffany will break something expensive of yours. Like a satellite or something." He smiles and reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers over the side of Bruce's leg. "Are you sure about this? I thought that Batman only works alone..."

Bruce's smile is faint but warm.

"Not quite," Bruce says. "I have... associates, people that can call on to help protect the city when I can't, but I could use a partner." Bruce clears his throat. "I would like a partner. Like you."

Bruce turns his face and then leans in so that he can press a coconut scented kiss to Dick's mouth. Pulling back slightly, Bruce lets Dick see the uncertainty on his face.

"I'm sure that I want to see you again. Maybe asking you to come to Gotham right away is... pushing it, but I _am_ attracted to you. I want to get to know you better."

Dick doesn't think he's smiled so hard before in his life.

"I want that too," he says. "And who knows, maybe Gotham is the change of scenery I've been needing."


	6. Chapter 6

**SIX MONTHS LATER**

"You're daydreaming again!" The newest member of their team and makeshift family -- a teenager named Jason Todd -- steps in front of Dick and pokes one gloved finger into Dick's face. "You're supposed to be training me while, B and C do their thing. Staring off into space isn't helping."

Dick rolls his eyes and then ruffles Jason's curly hair.

"You want to get roughed up that badly, baby bat?"

Predictably, Jason sticks his tongue out and smacks Dick's hand away.

"Don't call me _that_ ," he complains the same way he does every time Dick pokes fun at his status as the youngest member of their mismatched family. "I'm almost _sixteen_! I can drive if I want to."

"Oh yeah?" Dick crosses his arms over the bright blue design plastered over the chest of his armored costume. "That's funny. I thought you failed your last two attempts at the test." Dick reaches out and yanks Jason into a headlock that leaves the teenager squirming and swearing under his breath. "Fine, fine. We'll find some crime that needs to be stopped. But you're going to follow my lead. Got it?"

Jason nods eagerly once he's released.

"You're really gonna let me fight?"

"Yeah," Dick says. "But if remember that I _can_ ground you. No foolin' around unless you want to spend two weeks going to bed early and doing all of Al's work for him." He strengthens his tone and then taps two of his fingers against one side of Jason's green domino. "Keep your lenses down at all times and don't say my name even if you don't think anyone's around."

Jason offers him a beaming grin and a sharp salute.

"Will do, boss."

Dick returns Jason's smile and then reaches up to turn on the headset hooked around his left ear.

"Evening, Oracle," Dick says as warmth leaches into his tone. Even if he has yet to earn her confidence enough be trusted with her secret identity, Dick likes Oracle for her wit and the way she looks out for Jason even when he claims to need his space.

"What do you need?"

Smiling, Dick looks at Jason's eager face.

"I've got a little bird over here that needs something to do. Any fires out there for us to put out?" 

The plasticky clatter of Oracle's typing follows shortly and several seconds later, Oracle clears her throat and begins speaking.

"I've got cameras on what looks like a hate crime in progress a few blocks away from your location," Oracle says. "I'm sending you directions now."

*

In general, Dick likes working with Jason, but when they reach the dead-end street that Oracle's directions lead them to; he's reminded all over again why he volunteers to help train him when Bruce and Cassandra are otherwise occupied with their own missions.

The kid is a ball of energy and he's brave -- wading into the fray with his eye on the young man trying to escape from the midst of a mob of skinheads shouting slurs at him.

Every time Dick opens his mouth to call out a warning, Jason moves, flying at a new opponent before the last one tumbles to the ground. The kid might be in training, but he's good, doing enough damage with fists and feet that Dick is half-tempted to pause in the fight and clap for his and Bruce's protégé.

Dick does plenty of damage on his own, dislocating wrists and kicking out knees and causing what he _hopes_ will be permanent damage.

As the fight winds to a close, Jason makes a mistake -- his first of the night. He turns his back on one of the gang members that's still standing (despite a gash on his forehead that bleeds copious amounts of blood) and turns to the boy they had been harassing.

When Dick sees the knife, he doesn't stop to think. He flows into action, swinging around a light pole and landing hard enough to send him flying. It should be enough to knock him down _and_ out. However, the big guy doesn't quite go down as fast as Dick wants and even as he watches Dick stalk towards him with fear on his face, he keeps trying to regain his hold on the knife.

"Stay down," Dick says and there's nothing nice about his tone. "Don't give me an excuse to keep you down." Dick doesn't know what sort of face he's making, but the skinhead in front of him pales and goes ruddy in turns before he slumps to the side.

Dick considers kicking him just on principle only to hastily reconsider it.

When he's done zip-tying the skinhead, Dick buzzes Oracle to let her know to send the cops. Dusting off his gloves, Dick turns to go back to where Jason is sitting next to the would-be victim, but then he feels a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

Only the familiar rubbery smell of Bruce's suit keeps Dick from turning around and punching him on instinct.

"You did well," Bruce says in Batman's deep tones. "Both of you."

Grinning, Dick pushes a hand through his sweaty hair.

"Of course he did," he says, "The kid learned from the best, didn't he?" Dick looks around for Cassandra's silent figure. When he sees her, he waves in her direction and smiles widely. "I thought you and BG were doing your own thing."

"We took care of things faster than we expected," Bruce says as he curls his fingers in against the bend of Dick's arm. "Oracle told us to come here in case you needed help."

Jason bounces up to them.

"Did you see? Did you see what we did?"

Bruce glances between Dick and Jason and the silence stretches on long enough that some of Jason's happiness seeps away. And then Bruce smiles at Jason and clasps the boy's shoulder in a firm grip.

"I saw," he says. "I'm proud of you. Both of you."

Jason pumps his fist in excitement and then darts back to Cassandra's side.

"You made his night," Dick points out, smiling up at Bruce. "Think he'll go home without complaining this time?"

Bruce shrugs and with the cowl, the gesture looks ridiculous enough that Dick has to stifle an obnoxious burst of laughter.

"Batgirl has volunteered to take him home tonight. Between her and Alfred, he can't win. They'll have him in bed within the hour."

"Oh yeah?" Dick licks his lips. "Does this mean that we're staying out tonight?"

"If you want --"

Dick nods.

"Oh I do."

*

The end of patrol comes with the first weak rays of sunlight several hours later, catching Bruce and Dick sitting on a rooftop that's as far away from everything as they can get while remaining within the city proper.

"You need a new name to match your new suit," Bruce says in a low voice.

Sighing, Dick rubs his hand over the front panel of the suit.

"Yeah, I guess I don't look much like a Robin anymore, huh?" Not that he did before with all that bright blue and yellow, but Bruce is too polite to point that out and Dick appreciates the thought. "Since you came up with the suit, do you have any bright ideas?"

Bruce hums, but before he can open his mouth to respond, Dick cuts him off.

"And if you so much as _think_ about anything starting with the word 'bat', you'll be sleeping alone tonight. Got it?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Bruce says with a little rumble in his voice that shows his amusement. "Why don't you ask Oracle to help you then? Or Batgirl?"

Dick shrugs.

"I'm _your_ partner," he says. "You should get a say in this and besides, _I_ can't come up with a good name and the kid just complains about his name when I ask him. _He_ should be Robin now, not me." It makes sense to reuse the name. Jason's bright green and red costume doesn't look particularly Robin-like either, but Robin is a better name than all of the ones they've been using for him so far.

"He'll flip when I tell him," Dick says when Bruce points out how good his idea is. "It's not exactly original, but it's a lot better than 'Bat-Boy' or whatever Vicki Vale has trending for him on Flitter this week."

As the sun rises in the distance, Dick gives into impulse and worms his way into Bruce's lap. While his new costume is flexible and light even with additional armor, the suit that Bruce wears as Batman can be rather unwieldy. Bruce manages a scowl that lasts several seconds at the most and then Dick kisses him and whatever protest he's prepared to make vanishes underneath that kiss.

When Dick pulls out of the kiss, Bruce growls at him and reaches up to yank him close until they're kissing close once more.

"Yes, Bruce?" Dick says, smiling up at Bruce.

"We're going back to the manor," Bruce says, almost growling the words. "Now."

*

The best part of coming to Gotham City is that not only is Dick on a team again, but that there's a space in Gotham that seem tailor-made for him. He has Bruce to watch his back. He has the mysterious Oracle and her ward Cassandra. He has a room of his own in the manor and space in the too-large bed in the master suite where he spends most of his nights after they stagger back together from patrol.

Ted and Tom will always be family to him, but Dick thinks that he has room to expand on the idea.


End file.
